There is no end of reporting, analysis, commentary, and opinion pieces about the Covid-19 pandemic besetting God’s one human family today.  Here’s another.

In just over two months, Wuhan’s local contagion, initially denied and covered up by Xi Jinping’s dictatorial regime, has spread, awakening in virtually all citizens of planet earth both general fear and massive activity. This may not be a world war, but it has become a total campaign for health and the  survival of the human family.

Some branches of the family appeared calmly ready for the threat. They did battle and seem to have been able to quell the virus’ disastrous impacts.    South Korea and Japan have demonstrated clearly that they were readier to engage the attack than most. Their people have reaped the benefits of informed prudence. 

  

Other parts of the family seemed blithely unprepared and ill-equipped to do battle with the viral enemy. Italy, Spain, and Iran come to mind. The cost has been staggering. Was it just official neglect in Italy and Spain?  Was it the theocratic hubris of Iran’s religious leaders, claiming divine authority to leverage state power? Their people are paying dearly.  

We have also seen our fill of arrogant nation leaders who chose to diss both the threat and impugn those calling for urgent action. Their citizens are now reeling because of this irresponsibility, indeed, for this criminal negligence. Johnson in the UK, Trump in USA, Putin in Russia, Bolsonaro in Brazil, and too many others have confirmed both their narcissism and failed leadership.  

Energized by sycophantic advisers, these politicians chose to reject early professional advice of security personnel and public health experts.   They “intuitively” assumed that their illusionary, self-serving ideas were somehow blessed by a higher wisdom. As a result, windows of opportunity to mobilize anti-virus forces were squandered. Their national families suffer dreadfully for their incompetence.

Beyond nations, there are also masses of human family members with no place to call home. Refugees in the Turkish-Syrian-Iraqi border areas, in Jordanian camps, on the Bangladesh-Myanmar frontier, on the edges of Europe, at the USA southern border, and God knows where else, languish with little press now. Rounded up in camps with flimsy shelters, their lot is all too imaginably lonely and dangerous. Their feelings of abandonment compounded now by the deadly viral threat.

Largely grim news!  

 

But we’ve also been blessed by reports of people in the midst of the contagion being led to gracious, heroic, and generous acts of caring. It’s part of being family – in good times perhaps less obvious than in bad.  Within that dire context, self-giving of time, energy, comfort, compassion, money, service, and just sharing have also been evident. 

 

Individuals around the world are observing key practices to block the virus’ expansion.  Our apartment neighbour hung a little bag with a bar of soap on our front door handle.  Our son enables us seniors to self-isolate by becoming our care-filled provisioner.  To me these simple acts serve as examples of the widespread personal, practical caring well-reported in the media. 

Front-line workers and medical personnel are risking themselves (and their families) – too often ill-equipped – to battle for the survival and health of those infected, while comforting those succumbing.  

Researchers probe into scientific mysteries to overcome the virus’ power.  Essential services are maintained. Individuals, groups, organizations, institutions persevere in addressing the pandemic’s consequences and maintain life.

Our church has set up a telephone network with callers to one another of our connectedness and, like many other faith communities, has streamed worship services via the internet.  

Businesses have freed employees to work at home and governments expanded benefits for unemployed workers and vulnerable businesses.  

 

Civic authorities have made it easier for citizens to practice “physical distancing” and have enforced regulations when people fail to take seriously Covid-19’s deadly threat.   Flatten the curve! is a battle cry heard repeatedly. 

Provincial governments have supported shelters for youth and parents at risk in domestic situations, while ensuring that health centres are resourced to treat infected patients.

Governments at the national level are investing unimaginable amounts of money to ensure that people, organizations, and businesses are able to continue to operate and survive beyond the pandemic.  Healthy, robust government has yet again been affirmed as the most effective means whereby the family – local, regional, national, global – collaborate and cooperate to foster the common good.

I read all these acts of kindness and caring as signs of the divine Spirit of life and love. The Spirit blows where it wills – including in the hearts, minds, and bodies of all humans who make up God’s one human family.   I pray for the flourishing of the Spirit's gifts in all God’s children.  

 

The core Good News of the angels and the Word of scripture is “fear not!” (Luke 2:9-10 et al).  But there is fear.  We are no doubt, in varying measures, afraid - for ourselves, for those we love, and for the ever-enlarging circle of human life, for creaturely relatives, and for Creation in its totality.  

I don’t underestimate this fear. I also don’t allow myself to be paralyzed by it.   I realize I’m in a privileged place in the world order and have less obvious cause to fear. There are far too many others who are much closer to the brink of disease, poverty, homelessness, loneliness, abuse, violence, and death itself.  For them fear may well immobilize.

For now, my fear prods me to act with vibrant hope and critical love. I know that God’s entire human family and all Creation can and must become better than it currently is.  The voice I hear in the cries of all those living in fear is the voice of the divine Spirit.  

This Spirit of Life is calling us – each and all everywhere – to more just and generous, more truthful and persistent caring in the Way of Jesus, greater respect for all people and for Creation, and more faithful and equitable stewardship of all that Earth provides for sharing.   

In the context of life’s woes and hope, all people across faith boundaries and national borders are called to aspire to, pray for, and work toward that justice-based Peaceable Reign of God described in Isaiah 11:2 ff. and affirmed by Jesus as Luke 4:18-19 reports.  The threat of the Covid-19 pandemic prods me and others to resist this virus and all the other contagions that would harms the human family and diminish the Creator’s loving generosity.

Perhaps if I too were struck down by the corona virus, I might sing a different, more fear-filled song. I pray that the Spirit may give me the courage continue the Gospel song.  

But even if I don’t, I am convinced that the “fear not!” imperative is also a promise. It is an assurance that, no matter my fear, no matter my silence or complaint,  in the end “nothing can separate  us from the love of God” and I can entrust my whole being, my loved ones, the entire human family, and all Creation to the love of the One “in whom we live and move and have our being” in life and in death. (Cf. Acts 17:28; Romans 8:35-39)

The Spirit is with us – one and all.   Thanks be to God.