Triple whammies rarely happen, but when they do, they leave us floored for a response. This year has left us reeling for a way to comprehend the times we’re in. It’s a daunting feeling when the future is hazy, and where prognoses are dangerously despairing.
The triple whammy is a crisis of medical, social and financial proportions.
People are dying of COVID, and even if the percentage is only 4-5%, people who otherwise would not be dying are dying. It is 4 or 5 souls per 100. There’s the concern we all have, especially for the vulnerable ones we all know. The interventions of ventilation and intubation are scary realities. For those with the medical science, great. Many countries and many poor don’t have such medical infrastructure. We think of those medical professionals who’ve given their lives. We may think of ourselves as fortunate, yet it does little to relieve the anxiety within. If that was it, it would bad be enough. But that’s not it.
The social disconnection is palpable. Not just regarding social distancing. Nobody can just jump on a plane and visit far-flung relatives and friends. That’s the tip of the iceberg. But people are floundering and dying because of loneliness — the emptiest poverty of spirit.
Then there’s the shockwave of financial calamity amid us globally. Every bit of news breeds a little more disbelief much to the point where disbelief is normalised. People are starving and dying of poverty. Add to all this, the presence of such global disharmony and division as sides polarise which serves to scare the sensitive and anger the advocates. So many things we cannot change!
Take your pick as to which crisis is worst — the medical, the social, the financial — and it does your head in. How can we rationalise it? We’re not supposed to.
If you’re feeling a little strange and disconnected from self at present, and you perhaps privately just can’t shake it, you’re forgiven for being human; for feeling in touch with the glorious sensitivities any human should feel are part of their emotional repertoire.
Don’t besmirch your opportunity to live in the depth of intangible grief, but just the same, get the support you can get. That’s wisdom. If you’re anxious and depressed or you float egregiously between the two incessantly, you’re at that depth for a purpose, even if you don’t know why. Believing upon a divine purpose for it will give you the hope you’re looking for.
Peace is possible in the belly of torment if we hold onto a vision over yonder whilst the present is straddled with all the diligence we have in us. Go gently, dear soul. Your craft is life and that life is beautiful despite the carnage.
Reality is nothing to fear if we hold to a faith that we’re eternally safe with God.
Yet, God understands and does not condemn us in our fear, even as God calls us beyond it in trust.
Photo by Bechir Kaddech on Unsplash
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