The Silver Lining to a Pandemic Quarantine

Living through a pandemic is, in a word, miserable.  There is fear, anxiety, stress, isolation, and sometimes illness and death.  But I thought that surely despite all the obvious misery there must be some good buried deep within, and indeed, there is.

Compassion and Community.  In between the stories of people buying and hoarding four hundred rolls of toilet paper and ten gallons of hand sanitizer were countless stories of people stopping to help those around them.  You tend to see this kindness peek out a bit now and then, perhaps after a blizzard or hurricane.  But in those instances, typically things go back to normal relatively quickly, and the kindness soon fades.  Perhaps this time the length of time involved will make doing compassionate acts a habit for many, and we will exit this pandemic in a better way than we entered it.

Innovation.  They say necessity is the mother of invention, and there is nothing like a crisis to bring out that maternal instinct.  When I heard of the extreme shortage of ventilators, I immediately thought of the scene in the movie Apollo 13 when the engineers scrambled to build a lifesaving filter out of a small amount of available parts.  And sure enough, a couple weeks later I heard how the engineering department at the University of Miami developed a ventilator that could be built from parts readily available at any major home improvement store for about $125.

Family Time.  Yes, sometimes even for a short vacation having the family stuffed together in close quarters can be a bit trying.  But we keep looking forward to and taking vacations, so it cannot be all bad, right?  I have personally found a certain joy in the time we are spending together, free from the running around to sports, school events, parties and other events.  All those things are fun, but how often do we get to just stop them all and just have time together?

Empathy.  Watching this disease unfold has been painful, especially to those who are directly impacted, becoming ill themselves or even losing loved ones.  Through this we start to live each day with a certain apprehension of what the day will bring.  But underneath that uneasiness is the understanding that this is short lived.  Maybe a few weeks, months, or even up to eighteen months until a vaccine is available.  That is great news for us, but what about the significant portion of the world that lives in fear every day?  It may not be fear of COVID-19, but maybe other illnesses, war, abuse, violence, oppression or starvation.  Did you know someone on earth dies every three seconds from starvation?  That’s 25,000 people a day, nine million a year.  So, as we start to pull out of this crisis, do not forget those who live under such stress for a lifetime, and often that is a lifetime that ends far too early.

What does any of this have to do with Jesus?  Jesus was all about bringing people together, thinking about religion completely differently than the leaders of His day, spending quality time and sharing a meal, and having incredible empathy for the downtrodden.  And with these qualities, He is with each of us, so that we do not need to endure the miserable aspects alone.