A war of love

   Last week, one of my attendants told me that some of his young friends are ignoring the stay-at-home edict and going out and getting together and partying – and posting it online.  I got very alarmed and upset.  It made me quite angry.  These young people are being foolish, thoughtless and selfish.  They may well not get very sick or sick at all from the coronavirus, but they can very well spread it to those, including loved ones, who can get very sick and even die from it.  Not only that, the longer they do this, the longer this crisis will go on and the rest of us will be suffering and going crazy on lock-down.

   I have even less patience for those Trump followers and Tea Party-types who are going out and protesting, claiming that the stay-at-home edicts are violating their civil and economic rights and, in the process, putting themselves and, more importantly, their loved ones and the rest of us in danger and stuck at home for a longer time.  I get it that folks are angry about not being able to work and earn money for food and rent, not to mention going stir-crazy, but there are people getting very sick and also dying.  There are also those crazy pastors who are going ahead and holding in-person services, claiming freedom of religion.  And also our president, who, contradicting members of his administration and his health experts, sends out messages encouraging all this. 

   A lot of things are testing my patience these days.  I am getting impatient with staying at home.  (No, I’m not tired of Netflix, but I’m getting tired of watching T.V – subtle difference.) I’m getting really impatient with some of our national leaders, including Trump as Exhibit A, who have not been helping and who have worsened the situation. I’m even getting impatient with – I hate to say it – those who are even less tech-savvy than I am and are still having difficulty with Zoom.  I’m sorry – I’m probably just getting grumpy. 

   So, how do I deal with all this impatience?  How do I keep sane and not impossible to be around?

   I am finding it helpful to think like we are at war. It seems that things would go much better, more smoothly if we all had this outlook.  This is probably a weird thing for me to say as a Quaker, but we are not actually fighting, and the enemy isn’t a nation or an idealogy.  In this war, the enemy is a virus, an illness, and, no, the government isn’t trying to take over, take control and take away our rights, but we are being asked to help in not letting this enemy, this virus, do more damage. 

   Like with rations during World War II, we need to, yes, give up certain privileges, certain rights, to stop the virus from spreading so much and to protect those, including loved ones, who are more vulnerable to the virus.  The more this is done, the sooner this will be accomplished and this will be over for all of us. If we can all understand that this is about love, about caring for each other, and not about suspecting each other and knee-jerk decisions to stand up for ourselves, this will be so much easier, so much calmer and less stressful for us all.