***
The Coronavirus.
***
How quickly our lives have changed.
Just a few weeks ago, life seemed normal. Sports fans were gearing up for the NCAA’s college basketball tournament; our children were in school; shelves in the local grocery store were stocked.
Few, if anyone, ever heard of the phrase, “social distancing,” a phrase that’s since gone viral. No pun intended.
Now everything is closed – schools, movie theaters, bars, and restaurants. Gatherings over a handful of people are discouraged, if not forbidden.
The NBA, Major League baseball, and the Kentucky Derby are either postponed or suspended.
California and New York are on lockdown.
There’s growing fear, isolation, and panic buying, even a rush on toilet paper! Not to mention the repetitious plummeting of the Stock Market.
Some wonder if we’re on the verge of a global recession.
Perhaps most heartbreaking of all is the possibility of celebrating Easter alone, in an empty church, hoping people tune-in online.
How quickly our lives have changed.
***
Or is there a better word?
***
Maybe our lives haven’t changed as much as they’ve been interrupted, exposed, unnerved. We see things now we simply didn’t see before.
For example, our healthcare system is grossly underprepared for widespread disaster, causing a rush to build new ventilators and create new hospital beds.
Some people will illnesses are even being told to stay home.
If there’s one lesson already learned it’s that there really are six-degrees of separation between us all.
A virus exposed in an outdoor market in Wuhan, China, has turned the entire world upside down.
We were blind. Or better said, blindsided. We didn’t see it coming.
***
That’s also what this Sunday’s Gospel is all about, blindness.
***
Jesus sees a man blind from birth. Moved with compassion, he spits on the ground, rubs his finger in the dirt, smears the mud onto his eyes, and heals him.
This man was blind. But now he sees.
The question is, however, who is really blind in this passage? Was it only this man? Or was it every person who passed by him on the street, ignoring him from his birth?
Even the disciples ask Jesus whose fault it is that this man was born blind – either his own or his parents?
***
This idea that God creates someone to suffer is not only wrong; it’s also terribly unfair. At this moment, Peter and the other disciples prove to be just as blind as this poor man; only they’re blind to his dignity.
“Neither he nor his parents sinned,” Jesus says. “It is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.”
***
Part of what Jesus teaches us here is how to see beneath the surface; how to see the burdens of others; how to see human dignity; how to think creatively and come together.
That’s the challenge for all of us in these unnerving times, to come together, seeing that everyone is vulnerable; that everyone is to some extent afraid; that everyone needs support.
Are we blind to the needs of others? Has panic pulled the wool over our eyes?
There are millions of children, for example, who’s only hot meal comes at school. Without that security, where will their food come from now? Is there any way we can help them?
I can see their faces. I was once a third-grade teacher at an inner-city school in Newark. Some children came to school without having eaten since breakfast the day before.
Or the elderly? Who will help them with their groceries? With hygiene? With calling to see if they’re okay?
Why not us? Certainly we as a parish can contact those we know personally.
***
But is there anything else we can see beyond the stress?
***
Beauty.
Yes, there is even beauty to be found.
I’m sure many of us saw clips of that baritone opera singer serenading his neighbors from his balcony in Florence.
Or the communities across Italy who sing from their windows at six o’clock every night.
They say in Wuhan you can hear the birds again and see the sky.
And in America, people are putting their Christmas lights back up, reminding us that better days are ahead.
All around the world people are slowing down, reflecting, and with the right attitude, learning to see something beautiful in this otherwise global disaster.
Covid-19 can’t crush the human spirit. Not if we band together.
***
Even though there’s social distancing, for example, there doesn’t have to be loneliness. Sing from your balcony!
Even though there’s a shortage of supplies, there doesn’t have to be a shortage of generosity.
Thank the attendant at the gas station and the cashier at the grocery store for showing up. Give the Uber eats driver a bigger tip.
Practice a little more Lenten restraint.
***
The truth is, the worst of times can bring out the best in us. Look no further than 9/11. But being our best starts with seeing each other the way Jesus sees the man in the Gospel.
Not as a burden, but as a beloved brother.
That’s what we all are in the end anyways, one human family.
Though hard days may be ahead, sing from your balcony, turn on your Christmas lights, pray for those protecting us, and remember we’re all in this together.
