Corona - Mask Mayhem

I’ve been changing my mind about a lot of things.  And masks have played a large role in my road to self-discovery.  I am noticing that they also reveal a great deal about everyone else.

Piles of Masks

Way back, in the beginning – well, okay, in March of this year, the fear of mask shortages for healthcare workers was becoming a great concern.  As is true with every manner of crisis, entrepreneurs and people with soft hearts (these are not mutually exclusive, by the way), began churning out masks as fast as possible.  Some people saw it as their way to help in this war against our “invisible enemy” and others saw it as a way to bring in some money.  No judgement here, I’m merely reporting.

Elastic very quickly became hard or impossible to find.  I was fascinated with the unending creativity of the producers of these necessary, but suffocating, accessories.  Elastic hairbands quickly disappeared from store shelves as they were put into good use.  Ties were fashioned from fabric and every conceivable method of keeping our breathing hampered was explored.

Jaimee' and Paisley at the doctor

Research varies wildly and even as I write this I’m not sure what the last five minutes may have produced in the way of dispelling everyone’s claims to the truth about masks.  Sifting through all of it (or rather a small variety of it since I would not be able to read it all unless I quit my job and stare at the computer 24/7), I have reached my own conclusions.  Some things are no-brainers.  Social distancing works.  Wash your hands.  Don’t touch your face. And if you feel sick STAY HOME! But masks?  That’s inconclusive.  

I believe everyone should make up their own mind and take responsibility for their own safety.  And they should LEAVE EVERYONE ELSE ALONE.  The danger of masks goes much deeper than a virus.  Our differing opinions are becoming an excuse to behave abominably to our fellow humans.

If you feel angry that other people are not wearing a mask when you go out and about in full protective gear, please wait to vent your anger until after you have returned home, and stripped off all your clothing before entering and contaminating your house.  Then you may scream as you stand naked in your garage; it is much more satisfying to do so without something muffling your mouth.  And if your fear of this virus overshadows your fear of an Orwellian society, maybe you should stay home.  Forever. 

If you refuse to wear a mask and believe those who would never be seen in public without them are virtue signaling, SO WHAT??!!  Nobody cares what you think, really.  If you don’t want to wear a mask you don’t have to make a big deal about it.  Just don’t wear one and for pity’s sake don’t breathe in other people’s space.  No one wants to get closer than six feet to you anyway.  Seriously, a mask is much less offensive than some of the get-ups I’ve seen when I was at Walmart way back before this plague hit.  But, I digress. . .

Jaimee Smiling? Afraid? Surprised? Who knows?

Maybe if we could all just imagine that the person wearing or not wearing has issues they don’t have explained on their t-shirts, we could have a little more compassion.  Maybe the person dressed like a beekeeper has a seriously compromised immune system, lives too far out of town for grocery deliveries, and has ungrateful offspring off on a closed beach somewhere celebrating spring break.  Maybe the person NOT covered is terror stricken at the very thought of strapping something to their face because they are claustrophobic, have asthma, or are convinced it’s a government plot to feed us to the Matrix. If either of these scenarios is true, these people are in need of a kind word and a friendly smile, not your unsolicited, unqualified judgement.  If you are wearing, you might need to tell them you’re smiling though.

Then there’s that guy proudly sporting his respiratory protection, firmly fastened under his nose.  Sorry Buddy, you’re wasting your effort on that one.  Repeatedly adjusting it with your questionably clean hands is exponentially increasing your risks as well.  I don’t need a scientific study to prove me right.  I wonder if by any chance this guy is married to the woman who wears a mask when she’s alone in her car with all the windows rolled up.  The woman who feels called to gesture in disapproving anger to those outside in the open air breathing deeply of the freshness she can only dream about.

Now that all employees in Ohio are being told they must wear a mask while on the job, unless of course they shouldn’t wear one, (yes it basically says this in the fine print of the proclamation), shopping is more interesting than ever.  My daughter was picking up some “essential” items last week and her heart filled with pity for the cashier.  Drenched in sweat, she had obviously dug into her husband’s hunting closet, finding a dark, thick thing that covered most of her face and was likely a complete failure as virus protection.  She was misery personified.  Jaimee’ was worried of offending the poor girl but took a chance and offered her the handmade mask she had shoved into her purse (she’s made about a thousand so far). She told me that after seeing the look of gratitude on the young lady’s face she determined to always carry an extra mask along in case someone needs it.

I went to the drive-through at the local Dairy Queen last night to get my ice-cream fix and I noticed their masks looked like they were made out of thin, shiny fabric, the kind that is used to make cheap silky underwear.  My guess is that someone decided this was a perfect way to satisfy the governor and breathe at the same time, hence they are all wearing totally worthless but breathable face gear.  I couldn’t help grinning when I drove away.  Ingenuity.  It’s a wonderful thing.

I admit I’m one of those people sweating in panic thinking about covering my mouth and nose at the same time with anything, let alone three layers of heavy fabric.  Just writing about it makes me feel a little queasy.  So I gravitate toward the research that has “proven” wearing a mask is definitely more dangerous than breathing in whatever polluted air I happen to encounter when I’m out and about.  It reassures me so therefore it must be true.  But I will fight for your right to cover up your whole head if you want to, as long as you leave me to my own choices.  And I will do my best to scrub my hands raw, stay home when I’m sick, never touch my face again, and keep out of your space because I DO care about you. 

Hairband/mask

One of my co-workers, knowing my fear of masks, showed me her own bit of creativity.  She was wearing a stretchy headband. By simply pulling it down over her nose, it draped down to cover her mouth as well and hung loose to below her chin.  Again, not the N95 protection everyone is talking about but it should definitely placate the powers-that-be.  I promptly asked my daughter to sew me up a few.  I’ll at least give it a try when I’m at work.

I was told I probably qualify for a mask exemption since they freak me out so badly that my anxiety (one of the things listed by the governor as an excuse) is legit and severe.  But I thought since I’m the manager I really should try to set a good example to the employees.  Let’s not dwell on all the ranting I’ve done about it at work; there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind what I really think of all the hoops the government is making us jump through to reopen.  At least maybe I can set a good example in the facemask department.  My last hope is that hairband thing.  I tried on one of the cloth masks in my office one day and made it about five seconds before I tore it off and tried to calm down. 

I’m a little afraid, too, that some of my emotional upheaval has much deeper roots than a simple strip of cloth on my mouth.  Actually having something across my mouth is probably long overdue.  But I’m thinking maybe part of my problem is that I’m stubborn and I don’t like being told what to do.  I grew up in a very conservative denomination that had a great many fine qualities.  But I never got good at taking orders when the orders made no sense to me.  And wow, has this mask thing triggered me in a major way!  I find myself outraged daily to a much greater degree than warranted by the inconveniences being foisted on me by politicians that have priorities apart from my well-being. Frankly, I doubt they could care less whether I live or die, so what gives them the right to tell me what to wear?!  See, here I am all upset just thinking about it.  What it all boils down to is I like my freedom; I grew up in America and I like my freedom.

And one more thing: don’t assume that because I don’t wear a mask I don’t care about Grandma.  I believe Grandma should self-isolate until this thing is less of a threat.  I also believe that if Grandma is of sound mind she has the right to CHOOSE to not stay quarantined and to take her chances, assuming she is well-informed as to what she is risking.  We are all responsible for our own precautions, again assuming we are of sound mind.  Yes, I know, what qualifies as soundness is a matter of many differing opinions. Sometimes it just feels too much like we're marionettes being  yanked around willy nilly by people who think the constitution is just a bunch of suggestions.  

We may never agree on things but we can still choose respect and love for our fellowman. With or without a mask you’re someone God thought worth dying for.  Important for all of us to remember before we flip off strangers because of a mask.

I’m going to go do some deep breathing now.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

Corona Quarantine

scenes from the Spanish Influenza epidemic 1918

I finished the two-week quarantine our Governor has requested for Ohioans returning from out of state.  It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. Although I might have been tempted to cheat had my brother not told me there is no way I’ll be able to do it.  This kind of statement is like throwing raw meat to a Doberman.  I did not leave my property for fifteen days.

I’ve had plans to paint the foyer, kitchen, and dining room for quite a while now but never found the time.  I figure being instructed to stay in my house for fourteen days is as good a time as any.  I knew we would be on “house arrest” after we got home, meaning I couldn’t go buy paint, so I bought it in Florida before we left and crossed my fingers that the color would be what I wanted after I had it on the walls.  So far, I’m okay with it.  

After

Before

Paul is struggling with me painting because he dislikes change of any kind.  He’s relieved the quarantine is over before I start ripping out walls. We used to have conflict if I moved furniture around.  Thankfully, he has given up and resigned himself to my constant need to rearrange, repaint, and redo things around the house.  There was some heavy sighing though, as the walls changed from Mexican-restaurant-stucco-in-shades-of-orange motif to a clean buttery cream.  I left one, less-orange, wall in the dining room the way it was and he was so relieved, thanking me for the “accent wall!”  I’m wondering if he’s been watching HGTV on the sly.

Anyway, I’ve been hearing way more than I ever wanted from opinionated, self-proclaimed experts on every conceivable way to prevent or cure the latest global pandemic.  And now, along with millions of other Americans, I’ve been able to experience quarantine up close and personal.

One line of thought by especially vocal citizens decrying the stay-at-home orders is the belief that this is nothing more than a way to steal our liberties and turn us into a socialist country overnight. The outcry, the outrage, the call to arms (figuratively, at least so far) well, it’s almost as if this has never happened before, as if those of us in the 21st century are enduring hardships and threats never faced by anyone ever since time began.

Recently I heard a short audio excerpt from a book by Judy Yoder titled Vera’s Journey: A True Story of God’s Faithfulness amid Sudden Deafness and a Century of Change.  She writes about the great flu epidemic in 1918 and people being told to quarantine.  Schools, professional sporting events, churches, theaters, and other places where large groups of people congregate were shut down.  This sounds vaguely familiar to me.  It piqued my curiosity and I decided to ask Google a few things.

My online search about quarantining history was quite informative and very interesting.  The first recorded quarantine instructions are found in the Bible in the book of Leviticus.  Lepers were quarantined under orders from the Almighty Himself.  While today there are effective treatments for leprosy, I suspect not one of us would have opposed the forced separation of those afflicted from society at large back in the days before anyone knew what to do to prevent, treat, or cure this dreaded bacterial disease.  

The most famous mandatory quarantine in history was of Mary Mallon, or “Typhoid Mary,” as we know her.  A carrier with no symptoms she continued to infect people while working as a cook.  Put on an island for three years, she was then released into the unsuspecting general population after promising to never cook for anyone again.  Her irresistible need to make and share her homemade peach ice-cream forced her return to the island for the rest of her life, twenty-three more years.  Seems logical to me.

For anyone who thinks 2020 is the worst year ever, they should go back about a hundred years.  In 1918 WW1 and a killer flu were competing for center stage at the real-time Horror Awards. The death toll in the United States alone was 650,000.  World-wide it was much worse.  Fifty million people died of the flu, thirty-four million more than died in the war.  These are staggering numbers.  I can’t even wrap my head around it.  And one reason for the massive infection rate was the war itself.  Soldiers moving from country to country, and factory workers laboring in the war effort, set the virus burning through the population like a match to tinder.

The same as a century ago, the one thing that works to slow the spread is separation.  Unlike a century ago we are not isolated even during the time we spend in our homes.  We have countless ways to interact.  Facebook, twitter and YouTube for real-time interaction.  Smartphones to text or call.  Netflix to entertain.  Amazon to shop. And if all else fails, there are always books, if you’re able to read; hopefully everyone owns a few of those.

There are several things about quarantining during the present crisis that disturb me.  Historically the people who were kept isolated were those afflicted with whatever dread disease was running amuck while the healthy population was still able to be in public. Today, depending what state you are unlucky enough to live in (Illinois, Hawaii, Michigan, to name a few) if you are caught out of your house without a specific, government-approved mission you will be heavily fined and possibly arrested.  Fortunately hundreds of inmates have been released from various prisons to make room for these heinous criminals escaping their homes.

A few governors, along with their “medical experts,” have revealed their lust for power as they dictate arbitrarily which businesses can stay open and which ones seemingly pose a threat to the health, well-being, and lives of their hapless constituents. I credit them, though, for trying hard to look distressed while they take one freedom after another from all of us compliant victims. Indeed I suspect they are more to be feared than the virus. Our governor has the wisdom to offer a lot of guidelines and orders in a rather non-threatening way and I’m not aware of any arrests taking place.  But as time goes on, Ohioans are finding their patience wearing thin as he delays certain businesses from reopening and extends stay-at-home orders once again.

I am reassured by those notable political leaders who resist the temptation to power grab, expecting and trusting their citizens to act responsibly with social distancing, good hygiene practices, and self-isolation when sick. States like South Dakota and Arkansas are beginning to sound appealing should I think of relocating.

As time passes my opinion is shifting somewhat.  I no longer think it inevitable that we will suffer the same fate as those poor souls a hundred years ago.  The social distancing really has made a difference. And I do believe it was important to shut down for a short time to assess how this bug is going to move.  Will it search and destroy everything in its path or will it be relatively easy to halt, or at least slow it down?  It appears we have effectively done that.  It’s interesting to me that our very success in NOT having the horror of the Spanish Influenza nightmare repeating itself has all the conspiracy theorists shouting their outrage across the land, proclaiming that this was never anything in the first place.  That, I do not believe.

What I do believe, though, is that power, once given, is very difficult to retrieve.  People who insist we need to keep everything shut down indefinitely must have no concept of where their provisions actually come from.  The government has done many a grave disservice by paying the unemployed more during their time off than when they were working, thereby giving the false impression that labor is not a necessity but an inconvenience.  If I were a conspiracy theorist I would suspect that we might be on a fast track to socialism and the complete deterioration of our freedoms and life as we know it, unless we get this economy roaring again.

Fortunately, I’m not one of those people.  Or I don’t think I am.  Pretty sure.  Could be wrong.  On my good days I really believe we will rise above all of the machinations of small-minded and power-hungry monsters.  Other days, I’m not so sure.  And then I remember those heroes from 1918.  The soldiers who died for our freedom.  The nurses and doctors who died trying to save the sick.  The neighbors who took care of each other.  The people who survived to fight another day.  Those were our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.  That's where we come from and that's who we are.  

                                                                                                                                            

What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again;
   there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 

Corona Hits Home

I was in Home Depot buying paint when I got the text from my son telling me he was COVID-19 positive. And Influenza B as a bonus. I was relieved, crazy as that might sound. There was finally a confirmed explanation for the misery and anxiety of the past 8 days.  And  I’ll probably never go into Home Depot again without remembering.

I asked the question on Facebook about a month back whether anyone knows of anybody, personally, who has this virus.  I was skeptical about the seriousness of the whole thing. Well, I’m not a skeptic anymore. 

My son told me half-jokingly, before he got sick, that all the plague disaster films start with the government telling everyone there’s nothing to worry about.  And that’s how they were talking, way back in the good old days, three months ago.

He was exposed second-hand to someone who had been with someone that had tested positive a week or so earlier.  Because of this exposure his family was ordered by the health department to be in two-week quarantine.  It’s a fortunate thing they were thus ordered, otherwise they would have been in contact with many other people before the symptoms appeared. The person directly exposed to the confirmed case experienced only mild symptoms, and had therefore not been tested for the virus.  As my son’s health deteriorated with fevers, sweats, nausea, vomiting and a persistent dry cough we felt certain he had also contracted this new and scary bug. 

Paul and I were in Florida where we have taken to riding out some of the miserable winter weather that is common in our area of Ohio.  Even though our son is an adult with a family of his own, during the week of hearing about his deteriorating condition, I just wanted to get on the next flight home.  Paul, the voice of reason, reminded me I wouldn’t be allowed to see Erik anyway, and that I could worry just as well in the sunshine of Florida as I could in the bleak and blustery weather of Ohio.  He was right of course but I still wanted to slap some sense into him.

Every day I checked in, sometimes several times.  He continued to tell me that the fever was back up, he had experienced terrible sweats, he couldn’t eat or keep anything down, he was unable to sleep, he was too dizzy to stay upright, and by the end of the first week he had lost fifteen pounds. This from someone who has never been overweight.

My anxiety started to climb.  And climb.  Very concerned, I finally convinced him to go to the local ER for help on about day eight. After IVs and a whole lot of tests, they discharged him to sweat it out at home.  I was somewhat reassured because now there were doctors involved, there were IV fluids in, and there were medical people staying in touch with him.  Several more days of misery followed until, finally, his fever broke and he started the long road back, gradually building up his strength again.

I feel overwhelmed with thankfulness.  For friends who pray when we are too busy freaking out to do more than blurt out “God help!” now and then.  For doctors, nurses, and techs putting themselves in harm’s way to care for those who need them.  For a God who can be trusted.  And I’m so thankful that this horrible virus never went to his lungs and that his family has suffered only minor symptoms. 

I’m also frustrated.  When I see posts about how this is all a hoax or it’s just like a “bad flu.”  Uh, yeah, no it’s not.  I hear people say there are no cases around here, or hardly any.  Also not true.  Not nearly all the cases are being counted but that doesn’t make than any less real.  I hear people say that it’s different here in the country than it is in NYC.  Well, obviously, in many ways it is.  But my son, living in a small Midwestern town many miles from any major metropolis, got slammed with this bug from the other side of the world.  He hasn’t traveled outside the state since long before Corona was anything more than beer from Mexico.

I’m frustrated when I hear people complain that we’ve been suffering through this social distancing and yet our local hospitals don’t seem to be full. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?! Most hospitals in the country aren’t being overrun BECAUSE THE QUARANTINES ARE WORKING.

Having said all that, I also realize we can’t stay shut down forever because it is simply not economically feasible.  Our small family-owned business depends on tourism.  Our checking account is looking a lot less healthy than it did a month ago.  So my frustration (at least in this blog) is not about businesses opening or staying closed.  It’s not about which side of the political aisle people are looking for their salvation.  My frustration is about people blithely comparing this to a “bad flu” or insisting that this quarantine is nothing but a political plot by the left, right, or deep state to destroy this country.  That social distancing means we’re all sheep who do anything we’re told.  That it’s all about NOTHING.  That it only kills old people.

I challenge the naysayers to promote all their questionably researched theories after someone they love has been put through the COVID wringer.  Someone who is in the prime of their life and with no underlying health challenges.  I challenge them to imagine that the body bags they’ve run out of in NYC were needed for some of their own nearest and dearest.  I challenge them to contemplate the possibility that they could be incorrect in some of their opinions. It just might change their perspectives. 

RANT OVER.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him. Psalm 28:7

Corona With The Cousins

At the Pregnancy Clinics Fundraiser, Sarasota

Less than two months ago I had heard very little about a novel coronavirus from a place over 7,000 miles away, as the crow flies.  We got rid of network TV years ago, so I get my news online, and only when I have the time and emotional fortitude to endure it.

Paul took a flight to Florida nine days before I headed south in our SUV.  He was involved in some music events at the end of February and I was still up to my neck in work, trying to get things ready for a six-week absence.  Besides, he prefers flying and I like traveling in a vehicle that allows me to open windows when I want.  The airlines frown on that, it seems.

When I booked Paul’s flight I was thrilled to find a one-way ticket for less than a hundred dollars.  A mere six weeks later the price was $28.00.  During prime spring break season, no less.  Who could have imagined that people eating bats in Wuhan, China could send the cost of air travel from Cleveland to Sarasota plummeting?

When I pulled into our vacation rental I was tired but anticipating a six-week sabbatical filled with fun times with friends and family, eating in our favorite restaurants, playing competitive card games, spending Sunday mornings at our Florida church, and of course reading books for  hours on the beach.  The first week that’s how it went. 

Three days after I arrived I joined five of my cousins for a fundraising dinner supporting the Sarasota Community Pregnancy Clinics, something I had the privilege of attending during a previous stay.  Cousin Dan volunteers regularly at the clinics and Paul has helped a few times with small building projects. It was an inspiring evening hearing an obstetrician share his journey from performing over a thousand abortions to becoming a health care provider who recognizes that the unborn are alive and need protection.  He choked up when he told us about the death of his daughter over thirty years ago and how this tragedy began to open his eyes to the value of every living person.

I looked around the table I shared with my beloved cousins, our small group representing vastly different areas of the country.  Three from still-frigid Ohio, one from balmy Florida, and one from an Island off the coast of Washington state, all the way across the country.  I drank in the moment, treasuring what was sure to be a rare thing, the six of us together enjoying a fabulous meal, catching up on life events, and uniting in a cause we all care deeply about.

I have well over a hundred cousins, some of them I’ve never met.  Most of my father’s family is still a very conservative sect of Amish.  So when my parents left the church they lost touch with most of the family from that side of the tree.  My father was the youngest in his family, born six years after his last sibling.  I am the youngest in my family, also born six years after my youngest brother and over twenty years after my oldest one.  To this day, I only know one cousin from the paternal side of the family.  Knowing Cousin Ezra and his family, I feel certain I have missed out by not knowing them all!  Unfortunately, many of them died of old age before I realized they even existed.

The cousins I hang out with the most and whenever possible are from my mother’s side.  Unlike my father she was one of the oldest of her siblings.  Even so, with me being so far behind all my brothers and sisters (eleven of us), I wasn’t friends with my cousins growing up.  I was that annoying little kid that got in everyone’s way, especially among my siblings, so while I knew my cousins, I didn’t spend much time with them.  Except for one or two I rarely saw, they were friends of my older siblings. Fortunately, when one reaches adulthood, a few years younger or older is meaningless and I’ve found friendships in my family tree that I value as among the biggest blessings in my life.

Cousins at Wade and Barbara's

That evening, sitting around that table, none of us suspected what was coming.  And a few days later, we met again at a local restaurant, joined by Paul and three more family members who live in Sarasota year round.  There were ten of us sitting around a large table, surrounded by other diners on all sides.  We filled up at the salad bar, returning for hot food at the steaming warmers, heaped with chicken, fish, roast beef, mashed potatoes and vegetables in wide variety. Standing in line to fill our plates, we were close enough to the many other patrons to brush up against each other, something that might never feel safe again. Finishing with ice-cream at yet another food station, we left for the home of one of my Florida cousins for more visiting and a heated game of cards.  Yes, our card games get pretty hot.  Any game involving Paul usually leads to yelling and a constant review of the rules.  It usually ends up with all of us against him. If he notices he doesn’t seem to mind.

We had no idea that a short week later we would be wondering if Kay’s flight to Arizona to visit her daughter, or Lydia’s and Esther’s flights back to Ohio would still be available.  We did not imagine that the restaurant we were in would change from filled and bustling to empty and silent, preparing food for take-out only.  We hadn’t heard the term social distancing used in every other sentence nor imagined that our evening’s activities would soon be frowned upon and then prohibited.  When we hugged each other hello and goodbye, we didn’t dream that soon we would be conditioned to believe we were threatening someone’s life by such a simple, normal, automatic, interaction. We were a group of ten, maxed out in the brave new world in which we found ourselves a few short days later.

My take-away today is a familiar cliché (and I don’t like clichés but sometimes they are the only thing that fits): don’t take for granted a single minute with the people you love.  I’ve heard this said many times but it never really registered.  When contemplating making every minute count I was thinking in case someone had an accident on their way home or some other such personal and unlikely tragedy.   The whole world coming to a screeching halt was only something that happened in the movies and not something I thought possible in real life.

Now, sitting here in quarantine, I am so thankful for those moments together.  I believe we will see each other again, if not on this planet, then certainly somewhere better.  But remembering those evenings a few weeks ago, well, it gives me more than the warm fuzzies, although I feel those too.  Yes, it gives me much more than that; it clarifies what’s important to me.  It’s not toilet paper or eating out or winning at cards. And these irreplaceable memories are the fuel that keeps me from putting other people at risk because I’m frustrated or impatient.

Philippians 1:3 I thank my God every time I remember you.

Corona: A Journey to Discovering Ourselves

Masks by Jaimee'

One thing I’ve learned from COVID-19.  Whatever you were before it started, a skeptic, a conspiracy theorist, a comedian, a survivalist, a hoarder, fearful, bold, compassionate, generous, serving, creative, helpless, sensitive, in denial, judgmental, spiritual,  whatever you were, those traits have become enhanced, strengthened, exaggerated even.  I’ve learned a few things about myself along the way, as well as about some other people.

I learned that humor is my way of dealing with anxiety and the unknown.  Some of the best memes ever have come out of this time of uncertainty (thank-you to those creative minds that put them together.)  I also learned that my sense of humor is offensive to some people.  Sorry, but we all need to deal with this in our own way.  If you don’t like my Facebook wall, scroll on by or snooze me for thirty days.  I’ve been snoozing people left and right and it’s so refreshing.  What I need right now are encouraging, uplifting, funny posts.  The Henny Penny brigade gives me the urge to run and crawl in a hole.  So I’ve been making good use of the Facebook 30-day SNOOZE option and now I’m back to seeing pictures of spring flowers, complaints about the weather and seasonal allergies, prayer requests, praise reports from those on the front lines of the COVID battle and spiritual messages from my church friends.  The kind of posts that make me want to be a better person and live another day.

If anyone had asked me two months ago what I think might be cleared out first at the grocery stores, toilet paper would have been close to the bottom of the list.  Milk, eggs, flour, sugar, fresh produce, and chocolate, the things one needs to survive the apocalypse, these I would have expected to disappear.  As well as guns and ammo of course.  And some playing cards.  Definitely playing cards.  But toilet paper???  I found this whole debacle highly amusing.  But while frantic shoppers with clean-derriere priorities wiped the shelves clean of tissue (pun intended) the rest of us had access to actual necessities like cereal, canned soups and the aforementioned chocolate for a few days longer.

I’ve been moved by the compassion and serving spirits so many people have shown.  A “Giving Table” set up outside a local church has been regularly stocked with grocery items, free to whoever needs them. “Blessing Boxes” have sprung up around town, filled and emptied anonymously.  Packaged breakfasts and lunches for kids that depended on them when schools were still open have been produced en masse by coffee shops, churches, and community centers.  One local church made hundreds of free freezer meals for those in need.

photo by T Koser

Ladies throughout the community have been sewing face masks, some of them at their own expense and at no charge, for area hospitals, nursing homes, and individuals.  I admit I rather burned with anger at Facebook posts saying homemade masks are worthless.  I raged to myself, and to Paul of course, about how I wonder what all the critics are doing to help in this war. Then I remembered that delightful SNOOZE button!  Since the patterns used are straight from a hospital and they are happy to accept the masks, I hardly think they are worthless. Kudos to all the seamstresses working hours a day for no other reason than to do their bit.  My daughter Jaimee' has made hundreds of them and she likened it to rolling bandages back in the days of the great World Wars.  Not only is she helping provide needed supplies, she is finding it therapeutic during the long days of self-isolation to be doing something.

Christina delivering groceries

My sister-in-law found her mission in feeding the housebound.  She is, at the time of this writing, grocery shopping for three family members, all under in-house quarantine, of which I am one.  Her infectious laughter when she describes her scavenger hunt for everything on all our lists is a morale booster, along with her cheerful willingness to run errands any of us might find necessary. 

While I cope with humor, and the occasional rant, I’m not one to bury my head in the sand.  I try to stay abreast of what’s happening out there “among the English” as we say in our family.  But I watch or read online at a time of my choosing, girding my loins for the latest assault on normalcy.  Afterward it’s time to research all the information.  Way too much information.  What’s true?  What’s political?  (Because rarely the twain shall meet.)  Which “miracle drug” is being touted today?  Which conspiracy theory has the gullible freaking out this week?  And where does reality lie in all of it? 

Which brings me to the only sure way to find peace in these turbulent days: faith in a living God.  Faith in a power much greater than any mere mortal can achieve on his or her own.  When it’s difficult, and sometimes impossible, to know what is true about current events, some things we can be sure of.  God never changes and He is not caught off guard by a virus or our reactions to it.  Jesus died for us and rose from the dead so we can live without fear.  And He can be trusted.  Finally, there is nothing I can do to make Him love me more or love me less – all I have to do is accept it and choose to follow Him. 

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

Psalm 91:1-2