In our excitement over reopening and taking face masks off we forget that people are still dying from this virus and not just in the Third World. The milestone of 600,000 came Tuesday, the same day that New York and California litted the last of their restrictions on indoor gatherings.
The number 600,000 is about the same number of Americans who died of cancer in 2019, but we don’t have the same fear of cancer as that of a fast-spreading virus that affected the way we lived over the past fifteen months. Our fear was closest to that of AIDs in the early 1980s before we knew its causes or of polio in the early 1950s.
Deaths have plummeted from about 3,400 to a tenth of that since so many people have been vaccinated. But some epidemiologists still ask: Is it too soon? What will happen when the fall comes with its flu season? We still need to remember that there are many who have not been vaccinated or refuse to be vaccinated. Although we cannot live in a society of suspicion, it is important to live in a society of care.
Prayer for the Day
Emerging from the plague year, we lament those we have lost,
Those who died from causes other than the virus;
We are still in sorrow for we could not mourn in community
And our grief is not assuaged by the lifting of restrictions now.
Help our despair, O Lord, comforting us with your Presence
So we may feel hope and peace in this time.
In the name of the Great Comforter,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the over wrought heart and bids it break.
William Shakespeare, MacDuff on learning his wife and sons have been killed
grief is a house where the chairs
have forgotten how to hold us
the mirrors how to reflect us
the walls how to contain us
Jandy Nelson, American writer, from The Sky is Everywhere
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day but you do not answer; and by night but find no rest.
Psalm 22: 1-2