The Great Purification of 2020

Here we are, holed up in our homes, denied all the material goodies we’ve come to depend on, all the social events that draw us away from family, all the distractions that turn our lives into an ADHD life of frenetic escapism. In order to not catch the virus or have it spread we must “fast” from these things. Fasting and denial are probably the hardest behaviors for a modern person to endure.
We can look at this as “tough times” having to “grin and bear it.” However, maybe it is a purification imposed upon the planet to have us change our ways. No, not a god pointing his finger, giving us a virus, and saying “suffer to change your evil ways”, but a “Karmic” retribution for all the bad things we have done to our planet and society as a whole. Maybe it’s Planet Earth’s way of saying “stop and reconsider what it means living here on my not so green orb.”
Beyond the inconveniences of having to shelter in place, practice social distancing, or not go shopping, what is this teaching us? The government talks endlessly about preparededness i.e. the government should have had more medical supplies on hand, people should have stocked their pantries, etc. But that’s missing the point when the common citizen is now deprived of gatherings in bars, shopping trips to the mall, or a dinner out in a restaurant. We are being shown that what we are left with are the IMPORTANT parts of our lives.
What’s important to one person’s life is not necessarily important to another. However, this can now become a teaching experience where we become thankful that there still is drinking water running out of our taps, the electricity comes on when we flip a switch, and we still can buy gas and food. Going a level deeper, being denied social contact outside the home, hopefully, will have people realize the importance of family and good neighbors. That they are the valuable people in our lives not the casual encounters we have at an event or a bar. Sports events have been canceled so now the couch potato husband/father will have to interact with his family instead of the television set. Escaping from life through cruises and trips to Disney World are also out, so maybe people will start revaluating what experiences really give joy and expand their lives. With no shop till you drop mall trips time can be spent on other pursuits like hobbies or reading to your children. And children who hate sitting in classrooms might change their mind after two weeks and more of home schooling face time with only their parents.
This is not saying there aren’t any real hardships occurring. People are being laid off, losing money from stock market nose dives, friends getting sick, and even basic food items are becoming scarce though it’s unlikely we will ever face starvation. However, once the shock and pain of these things are coped with, the lesson taught is appreciation for what one does have.
Probably the hardest part of this purification time is to endure it without knowing when it will end. Not everyone has been through a natural disaster and thus learned how to hold fast to the belief that there
is always light at the end of the tunnel. #Patience is not one that 21^st century individuals often use. This time, with its imposed limits on our lives, will definitely teach us to make patience a choice or else wind up drowning in anxiety and anger. Bottom line is no one can make the virus go away; it’s a waiting game.
For now all that’s happening is our “new normal”. Will it continue in some form after the virus is gone? No one knows. But if we do not make use of this time to make some changes in our lives, especially how we relate to others and care for our planet, then the “suffering” we endured now will have been wasted. Can we take the challenge of letting this “purification” teach us how to be the best person we can be, in both trying times and times of plenty? Or will we just return to the self-centered “the way it always was?”

Let’s have a laugh

Yes, it’s tough times but as a writer I can always find something funny to write about. So I’d like to share my essay about my pet and hope that you, too will chuckle while reading it.

Quarantined with a turtle

It’s 2 am and I’m awakened from a deep sleep by a banging sound. It’s not water pipes or the heating system. I grab my flashlight and walk to the corner of the bedroom, shine it into his box and find that he’s totally awake. Sitting there looking at me with those red eyes, begging me for …what?
I take the box bring with him in it to the bathroom, leave, shutting the door behind me and go back to bed. “Banging time” has arrived!
Fritzi is my pet turtle and every year in Spring we go through this. He’s been at it for the last 2 weeks. Hour after hour he paces his small box, tries to climb out, acts like a wound up toy. Oh I know what the problem is, he wants a girl turtle. Nature’s urge to mate has reared its head again.
Hour after hour he bangs. Normally he sits and sleeps, or just looks up. Now it’s never ending. I wish I had his energy! Over the years I’ve tried all kinds of things like letting him run around on the living room floor, letting him dig himself under the pillows on my bed, and even offered him a fake ceramic turtle which he immediately proceeded to hump! But once I put him back in his box, he continues to bang and bang, and BANG.
Right now, due to the pandemic, I’m also caught in a box. I have to “shelter in place,” stay in my tiny apartment and share it with HIM. No matter which room I’m in I can hear him bang, which to me is like he’s screaming “Where is my girl turtle?” Me and him, him and me, day after day.
I’ve read reports that people trapped with other people during this pandemic have wound up hating each other, were driven to drinking, or had an episode of domestic violence. Yes, when Fritizi starts up all that noise, I entertain the thought of throwing him against the wall to silence it. But I do love him and wouldn’t hurt him. Right now he is the only living thing I can hug and even give a kiss to the top of his shell! So my solution is to do a quarantine within a quarantine. He gets banished to the bathroom for most of the day.
The days are long and repetitive. At least as a human I can call a friend or watch a television show. Poor Fritizi can’t do anything except sit trapped in his box. I feel for him. And even though I have no idea when this pandemic will end and they’ll let us out of our boxes, I know that in a few weeks, Fritzi’s “Spring Fever” will have abated and he’ll once again be quiet. He’s lucky in that sense, because being a turtle he doesn’t understand the magnitude of this pandemic so unlike humans he can’t ask “when will it be over?”

 

In these trying times

I am planning to post poems and essays about the pandemic. After 9/11 I discovered that not only writing about my feelings/reactions but also sharing them with others helped immensely to keep me on an even keel. So here is a poem I wrote a few weeks ago:

Life Must Go On

This poem is written in memory of all those who lost the fight against COVID-19 in this pandemic. It was inspired by the Queen song “The Show Must Go On”

Empty places, where have you gone?
Hidden faces, the days drag on and on.
Where’s tomorrow? Just a dream in your mind.
Yesterday is gone, left behind.

Life must go on
With or without you.
Life must go on
We will weather this storm.

Silent places, who are we crying for?
Abandoned places, we’re locked behind our doors.
More have fallen, do we know the score? on and on
Does anybody know what we are looking for?

Life must go on
I’ll face it with a smile.
Life must go on
I’ll go the extra mile.

We have our heroes in this mindless time.
They risk their lives to hold the line.
Outside the dawn is breaking
But inside in the dark we’re aching to be free.

Life must go on
I’m never giving in.
Life must go on
Together we can win.

The Epilogue

Hark! A Sonrise
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Through desert and famine,
Through days without rain
Through death and destruction
A path of great pain.
He walked without crying
He walked for our sins
In light then in darkness
Until all became dim.
He took on the crimes
Our cross he did bear
We just turned our heads
We just didn’t care.
He knew we’d betray him
He knew he would die
And in a cold tomb
His body would lie.
But he was the Messiah
This world he would save.
As the Son of the Father
Rose from his earthly grave.

Station 14– No escape

In the 14^th station Jesus is laid in the tomb. He had the power to escape the rock’s confines but for the unjustly incarcerated asylum seekers ,whose only crime was to flee from oppression, their detention center becomes an inescapable tomb. (and now in 2020 they are dying from the coronavirus!)
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1CH 29:15 We are aliens and strangers in your sight, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.
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When Will We Be Free?
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We came here,
To the land of the free,
To be free
From oppression,
Pain,
Retributions.
We only wanted safety,
What we couldn’t have
In our homelands.
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You chained us
Branded us as criminals
All we wanted
Was to be free.
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The sun sets on another day…
Endless they are in this tomb.
No one to save us;
Will there ever be
A sunrise in our lives?
A savior to redeem us
From this hell?

Station 13 – You who are broken

In the 13^th station, Jesus is taken down from the cross, broken in body, dead. In today’s world we have so many “broken” individuals. Their spirits, their lives are in pieces. They have become the outcasts in our society.
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Is 53 7 and 9 “When he was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of his people, a grave was assigned him among the wicked and a burial place with evildoers, though he had done no wrong nor spoken any falsehood.”
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You Cannot Know the Depth of My Pain
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I looked into his eyes
Deep blue like bottomless wells.
He sat there wringing his hands
Shaking back and forth.
His clothes tattered and torn
His shoes caked with mud.
“Where am I?” he asked
In a voice so smooth
Surely he was a man of intelligence.
He tried to stand
And crashed to the floor.
From his pocket fell
A vial of pills.
Now staring numbly at me
I helped him back to the chair
His hand was warm and smooth.
Picking up his meds
I realized the bottle was full.
“Did you take any?”
His reply was a howl.
A heart broken by circumstance,
A mind turned against itself;
Chemicals coursing his bloodstream.
Life had him crucified
And smitten for no sin of his own.
“Who will save you?” I thought
“From the unmarked grave of emptiness?”
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
No one would be here to claim him.

Station 10 – Naked for all the world to see

The tenth station depicts Jesus is Stripped of His Garments with only a loin cloth remaining before he is nailed to the cross. I made the comparison with how today’s electronic devices, cameras everywhere, airport searches, invade our privacy and create the potential to strip away our human dignity thus leaving us naked in another sense. This has lead to social shaming and suicide.
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ISA 47:3 Your nakedness will be exposed and your shame uncovered. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.”
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Shame On Them
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With no place to run
With no place to hide
Your life’s an open book
To all outside.
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They find you in bed
They find in jail
Recording each moment
Is their holy grail.
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You’re naked and bleeding
You’re stunned by the crowd.
No private moments
Anyone’s allowed.
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Cell phones catch weeping
Blogs follow your life
Stripped of  human dignity
All remains is this strife.
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Before them you’re naked
Your sins are exposed
Your shame leads to suicide
The story still not closed!