07 - MayDay
Normally, Spring is a joyous season full of new life and rebirth. This year, everywhere around us it seems that the world has been cursed with endless bad news, uncertainty, and an unwanted plague. Day after day it seems like the bad news is not stopping, from the strain on our hospitals, to funeral homes piling up, the markets being in an awful place, terrorist attacks in France and even our Canadian neighbors being victim to a mass shooting.
As more and more places ban religious congregations, we may lose the ability to come together as a community. But despair is the time to look to your faith, look to Paraclism and really dig into your beliefs - that is where the hope resides! Remember that the Paraclete believes in you, and that you can overcome this, no matter how bleak things are.
Firstly, while others have closed off religious gatherings, we still have the ability to meet. If that is taken away, we can gather virtually - the technology and tools exist for us to speak and worship and pray together - physical contact is not required, especially when it becomes this risky. It may seem counter-intuitive, but If the need arises, the most efficient thing we can do is stay apart. It will also grant us solitude, and time to turn up our own introspection, think of how we can better ourselves, think of how we’ve bettered the lives of others and how to do more.
Remember to be careful in your actions. The pandemic risk is something completely foreign to all of us outside of the medical profession - it seems unnatural to sanitize absolutely everything and wash your hands as if your life depended on it. But that is our burden to carry - that is what we must do, for ourselves and our neighbors. Wash your hands, wash your groceries, sanitize surfaces, do not be a vector for the disease. The sooner we can beat this thing, the sooner our lives will bounce back!
This is obviously hard to do, especially when we see sights of big numbers of people out enjoying life, numerous dense gatherings in places like California and Florida, people enjoying the beach without a thought for social distancing. Where they fail, we must take up the cause. Remember the Third Keystone - to uphold the rights and bodily autonomy of others, as you would your own. Everyone has the right to stay healthy and happy - respect this, and respect them by giving them space to be safe, or the space to make their own mistakes. Even if this trenches on their right to health, their right to make their own choices deserves some respect - just give them a wide berth lest they may be infectious.
This is where we also must not fall into the trap of being swayed by emotional argument at the expense of reasoned thought. Remember the Fourth Keystone: Endeavor to learn new things and be educated by others. This has to be thought through carefully, because there is a key difference between someone educating you, and someone bombarding you with meaningless drivel. Case and point, the pandemic is bringing out a lot of renewed interest in vaccine theories that have been so thoroughly debunked, they could not be any more clear. But the lie always travels faster than the truth, and so you too must be slow and methodical when seeking new information, lest you be tempted to inject sunlight or other types of cleaning agent into your body.
Normally, a Mayday is a distress call. This year, with all the distress around us, do not call out in distress. Be the help that others need, save them and listen to the Keystones to save yourself.
