Plague Journal (13): Times like these

Crazy times.

The Great Hunkering continues. Yesterday I bought a book at the local bookstore, calling in the order like I was ordering pizza. Then I walked down to the bookstore in a fine drizzle and called the store again to tell them I had arrived. The store was dark and the door locked. A young lady opened the door, struggling a little with the key in the lock, while I stood back a good 12 feet. She reached out through the open door and dropped the book on a little table placed there for the purpose, smiled at me, and ducked back into the store, locking the door again.

Meanwhile the president has press conferences every day now, a kind of theater of the absurd. These long, combative sessions with a mostly antagonist media are rife with self-praise, gotcha questions, vacuous speculations (i.e., that hospital staffs in New York are stealing facemasks "out the back door"), an almost hilariously free-an-easy way with numbers, constant digressions (you will seldom hear the man form a simple sentence without some loosely connected digression and then digressions from the digression), and numerous fact-free innuendos.

All this contributes to the feeling that these times are both intensely serious and faintly ludicrous. For some it is a real nightmare, but for others a kind of strange interlude, a break with routine that leaves us feeling at loose ends, purposeless, drifting from day to day in a kind of waking dream.

My neigbor down the street has cancer, and started his chemo treatment last week. His wife wasn't allowed to go to the hospital with him, due to the shelter-in-place rules. A friend of mine just lost his job. His position was cut due to the sudden downturn in the economy. He has 4 kids and his wife is working in an old-folks home, which seems a dangerous place these days. For these people, though they do not have the virus, the nightmare is very real.

As a Jesus follower, I believe that it is times like these we will one day be saved from. Have we forgotten that we live in a fallen world, a world of sin, of famine and pestilence and war? And of plague. These are not "signs" of anything but that times haven't changed a bit. We were born into such times as these, and called to walk out our faith under whatever conditions the world offers. Do not be surprised. Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul. Pray. Keep your heart tuned to mercy. Walk in the Spirit. Be courageous. Trust God.