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