This Time of Sheltering

J. BLUE/GETTY IMAGES

                         “Life is a luminous pause between two great mysteries”

                                                                                        ~ Carl Gustav Jung

During this time of sheltering in place, wearing masks, and keeping a “social distance,” we are ever more mindful that there is a virulent strain of virus among us. We were told we had to “flatten the curve” by limiting social contact and thus reduce the spread of the contagion. Our goal was to control the outbreak in order to keep from overwhelming the healthcare system. It has been an attempt to save lives.

After some weeks of social distancing, many of us are becoming fidgety, anxious, and perhaps a bit edgy. We fear the loss of income and the loss of social support. Since businesses, restaurants, theaters, stores, and even medical clinics, cannot do business as usual, unemployment is the highest since the Great Depression. People across the country are feeling the crunch as they line up in their cars for food from community pantries to feed their families.

Michigan rally protesting COVID
 lockdown (NBC News photo)

People are getting restless. Some are questioning the wisdom of our imposed isolation. They want to get back to work, open up the schools, take in a ball game, do some shopping. In Michigan, armed protesters showed up at the state capital demanding an end to the coronavirus lockdown. 

There are many questions about this “new normal” We are facing. How will it play out? How long will this last? Is this any way to live? I think many of us assumed that we could lay low for a month or two, let this disease pass on through, and then go about our lives as usual. Now we are beginning to see that this new threat is settling in among us.

Our Wilderness Period?

Maybe this is what Moses faced when, after liberating the enslaved Hebrews, they began to chafe at their circumstances. After breaking the bonds of their captivity, they got worried and fearful asking him, “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in the wilderness?” Perhaps our wanting to go back to the old normal is like the Children of Israel wanting to go back to Egypt.

It may be a new disease, a novel virus, and an alarming pandemic, but humanity has been down this path before. In the 14th century, the Bubonic plague killed 60% of the European population. In the 15th century, European diseases wiped out 90% of the Native American population. Humanity has faced deadly diseases before.

Last week I found myself wishing that I could email my Nineteenth Century ancestors and ask them how they managed to live in such proximity to death. Without antibiotics or modern conveniences, they faced death at many turns. There was tetanus, typhoid, flu, pneumonia, diphtheria, and a host of other ailments that could take you down. I wondered how they endured days of toil, hardship, and danger yet managed to find time to sing and dance. But then I decided that we are human just like they were. We will figure it out as they did.

A Time of Awakening? 

The advantage of being confronted with the possibility of death is that we can awaken to the wonders of life, however brief that life may be. ­As our scientists work to find a way to bring this pandemic under control, and as our nurses and doctors battle the frontlines of infection, perhaps we can find some bit of time to treasure the life that we have.

We have never had any guarantees as to the time we are allotted on this earth, but we do have the opportunity to take in this life we have been given. We can savor this “luminous pause between two great mysteries.” 

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