2020.03.15 Quarantine

There’s a virus called COVID-19 whipping its toxicity around the globe. We are to practice “social distancing”—the term coined to suit the daily habits of anti-social grumps, but now a term signifying the principal life-saving behavior to avoid contacting the virus that spreads by human contact. Staying away from each other in order to stay well. How paradoxical:the farther away you stay from other people, even loved ones, the healthier you will be.

The other life-saving behavior is more obvious: wash your hands—again and again and then once more.  Thirdly, avoid being in large crowds of people, and of course don’t travel. Such life-saving advice may just kill sports-crazy Bostonians and/or families whose kids are players in some sport and hoping for a college scholarship based on their performance—or their parents who are praying for same.

If you’re a overzealous extrovert you could go into withdrawal. OR you could stay healthy.  If you’re already a clean-freak, you’ll be ecstatically squeaky-clean. Disappointment is not life-threatening. Choose life—yours.

Equally attractive stay-well guarantees include Lysol-spraying or wiping the surfaces in your home. They don’t say exactly how many times a day, but for persons with OCD inclinations this would mean, well, the obvious overdo. Absolutely the most perfected police detection methods will never discover any fingerprints anywhere in your house, except your own on the Lysol spray can or the Lysol wipes container. This precaution will be particularly difficult if you have small children about, because they use every surface as if it were a personal touchscreen—evidence of their omnipresence. Do NOT wipe their faces with the disinfectant. This will cause a tantrum at the very least. Soapy water is old-fashionedly enough for most of this, by the way.

Those at highest risk to contract the virus, and possibly die from it or contract a secondary infection that proves resistant to the latest antibiotic, are persons over sixty, persons whose immune systems are already compromised, persons with lung or heart disease, and compulsive “huggers” who tent you with Christian affection.  

As to our executive leadership, the President at first minimized the little “bug,” then declared himself an expert by “intuition”and “hunch” on such medical decisions, then finally, as the only official authorized to make such a declaration, declared this virus a “national emergency.”  Okay so NOW we can start taking this virus seriously—but not really, because it is, according to the President, a foreign virus, brought into this pristine country from outside—probably without a proper passport or visa. But that should not be a problem with our wondrous immigration policies, unless the virus makes its case as a tourist. If so, all it has to do is cut short its visit and go on “home.” 

Quarantine, including closed schools and colleges, events, and churches, is the only appropriate and effective answer, and it is global. Personally, I feel for young happy-proud college graduates who are staging “fauxmencement”ceremonies to avoid drawing a huge crowd. No fans. Morally, I feel pained, because obviously people who work in food stores, restaurants, construction and many other kinds of workers cannot afford to lose an ounce of income. The virus exposes our racist classist society. Medically, there is also the danger of over-stressing the hospitals and other healthcare facilities if the virus spread too rapidly to manage critical cases.
 
Personally, I can tell you it’s a bit lonely if not boring. What helps?
    Online efforts. I attended online Eucharist at our cathedral this morning.
    Phoning my adult children a few more times than is necessary, yet the sound of each voice on the answering machine lifts me from quarantine gloom.
    This is one of the few times in my life when I’ve been totally obedient—compliant to a fault. Nice to know it’s in me.
    I can write. Words heal. I can pester my husband with baloney, read, watch television, and pray—a powerful energy force through which I know I am not alone and by which I trust God’s faithful Spiritual presence, like a masseuse, de-kinking.
    Keeping a robust sense of humor. Not possible to frown while laughing.
    Poetry is the best salve. Here is a poem that frames quarantine and pandemic in a creative religio-spiritual way. To see more of Lynn’s fine poetry visit her website  lynnungar.com.

Pandemic by Lynn Ungar

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?

Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

 --Lynn Ungar 3/11/20

And one more thing: tears. Tears cleanse, refresh, and release. I am mourning the death on March 13th of a beloved bishop, the Rt. Rev. Barbara Clementine Harris, the first woman bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion after being elected, proudly, by the Diocese of Massachusetts where she has served as Suffragan since 1989. Barbara was a force for justice, a friend who supported my writing, a woman of piquant humor, no matter what was happening, and a vibrant presence we all will greatly miss.

Our present diocesan bishop of Massachusetts, the Rt. Rev. Alan M.Gates, sent an eloquent pastoral message to the clergy and people of the Diocese of Massachusetts. His words caught up my soul:

A few hours later I found myself at the bedside of one beloved to us all who had just slipped peacefully from this world to the next. In the sure and certain hope which we claim, I gave voice to the Church’s prayers of commendation: Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world . . . into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.

A solitary moment, yet embodying the fullest companionship imaginable.  

At no time are we alone. Here, there. Now, then. At few moments in our memory have we more needed to remember this, to assure one another of this and to show forth that conviction to others as Christians.”

And I wept.