Plague Journal (18): Palm Sunday edition

I measure the state of my own mental health by how much I simply want to sit down and read a book, and how willing I am to do that without allowing myself frequent interruption. So, ability to stay focused.

In the first couple of weeks of this sheltering-in-place, I had very little of that ability. Skimming along Facebook took up a lot of my time, dropping an angry emoji here, a sad one there.

I think I'm getting better. I read a good deal yesterday. Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year. I also walked down to the grocery store, where they have instituted a new 50-person limit in the store. You have to stand in line now. There were about 30 people in line when I got there. It was a lovely morning, so that was fine. Note to self: get your shopping in on the nice days.

Sweetie and I went for a walk in the afternoon. There weren't many people out and about, but some in their yards raking up leaves. Everyone made a point of looking up and waving, shouting hello, how are you? This is unusual in Maine, where your neighbor might do no better than a nod over the course of two decades. Sweetie said, "This is so strange . . . Have we suddenly turned into the Midwest?"

I notice a lot of articles about the devastating economic cost of this shutdown. Some of them begin with the presumption that the cost is too high, because the impact of this virus will be no different than any ordinary flu season. They usually look back to a year when the flu took 80,000 lives, and then point to our current COVID-19 toll of (currently) only 8000 or so. Overreaction, they cry.

The only valid datapoint in this argument is the number of deaths under current conditions versus the number we might have had if there were no shelter-in-place orders. That's a number we can never know for certain, of course, but epidemiologists seem to agree it would have been devastating.

A second point: have you seen the stories coming out of NYC? I think it quite likely that without physical distancing we would have many more cities in the same condition. As it is they are saying that New Orleans and Detroit may become the next NYC-like hotspots within a week.

Finally, today is Palm Sunday. I noticed this yesterday with a little surprise. I am not exactly a faithful observer of the Church calendar these days, but it strikes me now that in these times, when the days seem to run together, it might be a salutary practice. On Palm Sunday Christians celebrate the event described at the start of Matthew's chapter 21 (and elsewhere). Jesus, having announced the Kingdom of God throughout his ministry, and patiently over three years taught incessantly about what it is, and how it should be received, now arrives at Jerusalem and is hailed as king by the crowds.

Although this episode is often called "The Triumphal Entry" or somesuch, we should understand that in ironical terms. Most of the people haling him as king will desert him within the week. Few of them had remembered, I'll wager, this part of the Master's teaching:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. Mark 8:34,35