The Turning of the World.
How do we even get a perspective on this? In the space of a week here in my adopted country of the USA, we’ve gone from being fairly complacent to being terrified to a level that is unbelievable.
None of us knows what the future holds, and anyone who tells you they do, is probably over confident. Because the truth is, nothing like this ever happened before.
But the situation is not unlike terrible times before.
In my birth country of England, during the years of the Second World War, planes flew over the skies above the town in which I was to be born, and dropped bombs.
Missiles launched from across the seas struck churches, and the population feared everyday an invasion from a cruel enemy who gave no quarter, and showed no mercy.
In those times, death could come in the next evening, where the cover of darkness would allow the planes to fly, and the bombs to fall.
Growing up there as a teenager, I never understood it properly.
The stories of relatives and history seemed so unconnected to the relative safety in which I grew up (and I do mean relative, because despite my childhood not being an easy one, there was very little risk of dying in an explosion come the darkness).
I never truly understood that fear they must have lived through, but I’m starting to really understand how you can feel powerless against an enemy, and how you can struggle to understand how to get through the next day, and the next, and the next.
For we are living through a moment of history, and our choices get to determine how it turns out.
Because no, I can’t design a vaccine or an antibody to fight this virus, but I can through my actions and words lift the souls of those around me.
I don’t know how to keep our water running, nor our power on, but I can check on those who may be struggling, and do the best I can to help them. While my skills in the healthcare world do not lend themselves to triage and respiratory care, I can give advice and comfort to those who struggle with lesser, but still very real problems.
Because in order for us to survive as a nation, and a world, we need to connect, and we need to care.
In those dark and terrible days in England, it was the communities that won. While individuals broke the Nazi code, and brave pilots flew and men stormed the beaches, it was the unsung heroes back home who watched out for each other, who cared when no one else could, and who sat with the scared, the despairing, the alone.
If we are not together, we will not make it through this in the way that we can.
Today, we all have choices. We can succumb to fear, or we can focus on another. We can hoard and isolate, or we can share and uplift. Whoever you are, whatever your circumstance, there is something you can do to make the burdens of another less painful.
Even if it’s just lifting their heart in a time of trouble.
So please, today and every day onwards, please do what you can so that we can all be able to say with honesty that we were there, and we helped another.
Together, we will get through this, and this pale blue dot in the darkness of the universe will shine all the brighter because we pulled together while we were forced to stand apart for just a little while.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings