For Crying Out Loud

I cried for the first time on Sunday since the pandemic started. I cried hard. Sat on my bathroom floor and sobbed. It has been 6 months since I have stepped foot in a church. I have had to watch on TV with a puppy continually bringing me a ball and my older dog begging to be petted. Not an optimal church experience. I am a people person. I love my church family. I have no family in North Carolina. They are my family. I love singing with them, worshipping with them and hearing God’s word-in His house. Oh, I know that I can pray anywhere. I pray all the time at home. Always have. But church is for gathering together-and the Bible, God’s holy and inspired word, commands us not to forsake gathering together. Yet here we are, on our couches, may as well be watching football…which is allowed for crying out loud. But “no” to praying and singing and gathering in the name of God. 

I cried for my two college age children trying to get an education, paying to be on a college campus, yet they are sitting at my kitchen counter on laptops. I cried because they are not around others their own age, making new friends or finding the potential love of their life. They won’t find those in my kitchen.  I grieve for the impersonal level of education they are getting and worry if they are really “getting” their money’s worth, and how it will affect them in the long run when they enter the job market one day, 

I cried for my friend, at her wits end trying to teach both an elementary student and a middle schooler who is extremely gifted, while maintaining a high powered law career-from home,  I heard the desperation in her voice and listened to her helplessly as she sounded like she was at the breaking point, considering quitting her incredible job.  How will her children fare in all of this, all the gifted children?  How will the children who are academically challenged fare?  What will become of them as they enter high school and one day attempt higher education?  

I cried because I saw people on social media laughing and cheering as people’s boats sank to the bottom of a lake-people who were peacefully gathering, doing no harm to anyone or thing.  Yet, they look the other way when businesses are being destroyed and the there is loss of innocent life during the riots and protests.

I cried because of how this has become a political football.  You are a Democrat if you dutifully wear a mask and a Republican if you don’t. WHAT??? The “Wear A Mask” crowd is now saying “Don’t trust the vaccine.” When did health go out the window?

The truth is the information keeps changing and people don’t know what to believe.  There is no endgame.  No plan.  No target date.  If you give most people those things, they can put up with almost anything,  In the absence of those, you have uncertainty, fear and eventually panic.

And there is no end in sight. What is the game plan?  This has been circulating Facebook.  You may agree or disagree.  It is however, thought provoking.

“Anyone out there who can tell me what our end game is with the covid 19?

What is the magic formula that is going to allow us to sound the all clear?

Is it zero cases?

The only way that will happen is if we just stop testing and stop reporting.

Is it a vaccine?

It took 25 years for a chicken pox vaccine to be developed.

The smallpox inoculation was discovered in 1796 the last known natural case was in 1977.

We have a flu vaccine that is only 40 to 60% effective and less than half of the US population choose to get one, and roughly 20,000 Americans will die of the flu or flu complications.

Oh, you’ll mandate it, like other vaccines are mandated in order to attend school, travel to some foreign countries, etc.

We already have a growing number of anti vaxxers refusing proven, tested, well known vaccines that have been administered for decades but aren’t necessarily safe!

Do you really think people will flock to get a fast tracked, quickly tested vaccine, whose long term side effects and overall efficacy are anyone’s best guess?

How long are we going to cancel and postpone and reconsider?

You aren’t doing in person school until second quarter?

What if October’s numbers are the same as August’s?

You moved football to spring?

What if next March is worse than this one was?

When do we decide quality of life outweighs the risks?

I understand Covid can be deadly or very dangerous for SOME people, but so are strawberries and so is shellfish.

We take risks multiple times a day without a second thought.

We know driving a car can be dangerous, we don’t leave it in the garage. Many speed and don’t wear seatbelts.

We know the dangers of smoking, drinking and eating fried foods, we do it anyway.

Is hugging Grandma really more dangerous than rush hour on the freeway?

Is going out with friends after work more risky than 4 day old gas station sushi?

Or operating a chainsaw?

When and how did we so quickly lose our free will?

Is there a waiver somewhere I can sign that says, “I understand the risks, but I choose a life with Hugs and Smiles, and the State Fair and go to Church and go hug my Mom in her retirement home.

I understand that there is a minuscule possibility I could die, but I will most likely end up feeling like crap for a few days.

I understand I could possibly pass it to someone else, if I’m not careful, but I can pass any virus onto someone else.

I’m struggling to see where or how this ends.

We either get busy living or we get busy dying.

When God decides it’s your time, you don’t get any mulligans, so I guess I would rather spend my time enjoying it and living in the moment and not worrying about what ifs and maybes, and I bet I’m not the only one.”

Please don’t flood me with comments on this post. It is supposedly written by a nurse-could also be a some troll living in his mother’s basement.  I don’t know.  I do know that I am profoundly sad.  We have given up a lot.  Some of you still go about your daily lives pretty much like normal.  I would like my “normal” back.  I am a Christian.  But I feel my faith and the right to practice it slowly ebbing away.  I need to be in church each week with fellow believers. Iron sharpens iron.  I’m sure any Muslim or Jew feels the same way right now.  To allow NFL players to take the field on Sunday and not allow people in a church that same day is insane. To say that angry mobs of protestors and rioters chanting do not spread the virus but church goers singing and praying do -is beyond the pale.  

Time to come clean.  How broken will the country have to be before this ends?  Is it all about the virus?  Is it political? Will it be worth the price we all are paying?  There has been a 27 percent increase in alcohol abuse since the pandemic began in the United States. Mental Health officials reports more than one-third of Americans have displayed clinical signs of anxiety, depression, or both since the start. (Census Bureau). Gun and ammunition sales have sky rocketed because people do not feel safe and fear life without police. Whatever the end game here is, I truly hope it is worth it.  It seems we are being killed one way or another, in spirit or body. I fear it won’t be the one and only time that I cry,