When This Pandemic Ends, We'll Have Decisions to Make By Connie Schultz

[babylonsister]

https://www.creators.com/read/connie-schultz/03/20/when-this-pandemic-ends-well-have-decisions-to-make?fbclid=IwAR3gOb12Artms_S11J7fPtBD6nxuIbobvrHTbCAaQd3wY1VyKbAVgIe8Pc4


When This Pandemic Ends, We'll Have Decisions to Make
By Connie Schultz
March 19, 2020

snip//

If you are physically vulnerable in any way, because of age or medical conditions, or you love someone who is, it is easy to fall prey to the soul-sucking churning of worry and anxiety. Even the toughest among us have our weaker moments as we watch the news get worse and worse. This will get better, but when?

I confess to moments of feeling hollowed out by the need to isolate from friends, colleagues and family members. I miss my husband, who must be in Washington, in the Senate. I miss grandchildren, their scent and their voices, and their wide-eyed wonder, but their parents have rightfully made clear that we must stay away for our own good.

Seldom has doing the right thing for our physical health felt so wrong for our well-being.

Again, I turn to the poet O'Donohue:

You are in this time of the interim

Where everything seems withheld

The path you took to get here has washed out;

The way forward is still concealed from you.

"The old is not old enough to have died away;

The new is still too young to be born."

But take heart, he writes.

What is being transfigured here is your mind,

And it is difficult and slow to become new.

The more faithfully you can endure here,

The more refined your heart will become

For your arrival in the new dawn.

When this pandemic comes to an end, we will not be who we were at its beginning. This is extraordinary.

Most of us will survive, and we will have some decisions to make. Will we seek to be more connected? Will we see anew how much we needed one another all along? Will we repair some of the damage we have inflicted on others and on ourselves?

Again, John O'Donohue:

Cradle yourself like a child

Learning to trust what emerges,

So that gradually

You may come to know

That deep in the black hole

You will find the blue flower

That holds the mystical light

Which will illuminate in you

The glimmer of springtime.

[UpInArms]

1. Thank you for posting this

I needed her words ... for so many reasons

[PunkinPi]

2. Connie Schultz is a national treasure. Thanks for this. K&R nt

[lark]

3. K&R

Connie Schultz, lifting up our souls, which are so weary.

[bobbieinok]

4. Love these O'Donohue poems!

[wnylib]

5. What will the world be like when this is over?

Last edited Thu Mar 19, 2020, 01:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Although the death rate from this is not as high as the repeated Medieval bouts of Bubonic Plague, or the 1918 flu pandemic, the effects on the world economy, governments, and individual daily lives and behavior are enormous.

In those other pandemics, people also feared contact with loved ones. They did not understand disease vectors, causes, and treatments as well as we do today, but they knew that contact with the sick was risky.

How will society and nations change? Will there be a world shift in the economic status of nations, depending on which ones handle the crisis well, or not well? What will happen to economic globalism? To democratic freedoms as the need to impose restrictions grows? Will people's faith in government institutions crumble, causing reforms or an overhaul?

Will people value personal contact more, after losing it? Or will we be even more adapted to electronic contact? What about the demographic effects on society of losing the most vulnerable? Not just seniors, but vulnerable ethnic groups due to economics, poor health coverage, poor living conditions?

Will we learn to use technology better to assess risks and get on top of them sooner?

Politically, will we learn not to demonize science, facts, and truth? Learn to choose leaders for ability instead of personality?

What are the myriad ways in which our lives are affected now, and will they be temporary or long lasting effects?

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. And a very big decision: can the world afford to allow the GOP to continue to exist?

Or other life-threatening and human-threatening ideologies?

Will we realize that the real virus is modern-day GOPism and do what is needed to eradicate it and make it powerless?

[FiveGoodMen]

8. My answer is no.

But will we let them continue their shit anyway?

History is not encouraging.

[babylonsister]

11. We would all like the gop to be eradicated; they

are evil personified.

And YOU! Really happy to see you!

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Good to see you, too!

[gibraltar72]

7. Breathtaking.

[RT Atlanta]

9. beautiful words and perspective

thank you for sharing!

[crickets]

10. Thanks for posting this. nt