As I watch the news reports about the coronavirus, are we ready for an epidemic of these proportions? Are we, as a nation of prosperity, prepared to lose many of the things each of us has worked so hard for? Why did the program that would help us face such an outbreak get cut completely from our federal budget several years ago? Change is never easy, and many of us can’t fathom a world that would be vastly different from what we now call home.
Other than the Spanish flu of 1918, this country has never really experienced things such as mass loss of family and friends due to a germ, of famine due to empty grocery shelves and supply disruptions, of economic losses the likes of which we have never seen since the crash of the stock market in 1929, of not being able to teach our children due to closed schools, of dying due to a lack of medicines made from around the world, of not being able to support our families because the businesses we work for are closed, or not being able to just breathe clean, fresh air.
Recently, I read that some people believe Christ will return soon to His earthly home, perhaps sooner than what has been written in the book of Revelations. Those of us who believe in Christ will go to our Eternal home; those who do not will be lost. I am certain if we believe we are more than ourselves, we can overcome this epidemic. If we grow our fields of ubuntu, our fields of humanity, and take care of each other, we will survive. The African word, ubuntu, means, “I am because we are.” When love is at the center of everything we say and do, the world will be what God wanted His creation to be: beautiful. Don’t you think it’s time to start believing in God again, so that whatever happens to us will be a blessing, not a curse?
Anna Hartt
