People say to me, “When all this is over,” as if everything will return to normal -- whatever they think normal is -- as soon as the Covid-19 furore ends. 

            I doubt if things will ever go back to normal. At least, not to what we used to consider normal. 

            This may seem like a bleak subject for an Easter weekend, but it’s relevant – please read on. 

            A disease does not go away simply by restricting its transmission. 

            Suppose that Dr. Bonnie Henry’s isolation measures eliminate the Covid-19 virus within B.C. No new cases show up for, say, a whole month. All current cases recover. Our province becomes Covid-free.

            The only way to stay Covid-free would be to deny entry to anyone who comes from anywhere that is not equally Covid-free. Other provinces, and neighbouring U.S. states, to say nothing of the rest of the world. Otherwise the transmission ripples start all over again. 

            That would require a wall around B.C. more impenetrable than anything Donald Trump has dreamed of along the Mexican border. 

            Covid-19 has forced us to recognize that we live in a global context. We can’t isolate ourselves forever. We need international partners for face masks and ventilators, pharmaceutical products and fresh vegetables. We can’t force every truck crossing the border, every ship arriving by sea, to go into two-week quarantine.

            The only lasting solution is immunity, not isolation. Immunity, either by exposure or by vaccination.

Waiting for a vaccine

            Older readers may remember the polio epidemics of the 1950s. As friend Rich Gibbons reminded me, more than a half million cases occurred each year. In 1949 alone, more than 42,000 people were diagnosed in the U.S. and 2,700 died.   Many of those who survived were sentenced to lives of pain and disability.  

            It was highly contagious. And there was no cure. 

            Until Jonas Salk, and later Albert Sabin, developed polio vaccines. 

            It took another 30 years before the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and Rotary International, began a program to eliminate polio worldwide. 

            Today, only three countries still have active polio cases. 

            It took roughly 20 years to develop a polio vaccine. Five years for measles. Four years for Ebola – a far more lethal illness. 

            Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, estimates at least 18 months to develop a Covid-19 vaccine. That’s how long we can expect restrictions on travel and gatherings, then. 

            Even then it will be fought by some who like to believe that vaccines are part of a gigantic conspiracy by nebulous forces. 

Creative re-thinking needed

            I wonder how life will be different after Covid-19. 

            For certain, a vast number of small businesses will not survive. Especially those that provide people services. Restaurants and cafes. House and window cleaning services. Churches and charities. 

            Even before Covid, I was told that about 50 local churches in the United Church of Canada would shut down this year. I suspect that figure may rise, thanks to Covid closures. When people cannot meet, they cannot build a sense of shared responsibility, nor sustain a mutual willingness to keep paying for services they are no longer receiving. 

            Does Zoom qualify as “where two or three are gathered together?”

            Half of my own congregation’s annual revenue comes from its Thrift Shop. Which is currently closed, although it is needed more than ever. 

            I have lost track of Justin Trudeau’s daily announcements about how much money the federal government is throwing at the side effects of the Covid-19 regulations – unemployment, loss of income, mental health – over and above medical costs. It seems to add up to somewhere over $200 billion. I doubt if even Finance Minister Bill Morneau knows for sure what the total bill will be. 

            Not that long ago, opposition parties were screaming that a deficit of a mere $10 billion would bankrupt our grandchildren. 

            It’s going to take some really creative economists to devise new principles for the present chaos, as Keynes did for the Great Depression, and Friedman did for the Post-War Boom. 

            Yes, there will come a new normal. But it won’t be the old normal. 

            It will no more be the same normal as the Easter Resurrection, in Christian experience, was the same normal as before Good Friday. The Resurrection, regardless of how you understand it, could not have been predicted. It didn’t restore anything. It set up a totally new normal for the followers of Jesus..

            We can’t predict our new normal yet. But whatever it is, it will be normal only until the next global emergency.

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Copyright © 2020 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

                       To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Expressions of sympathy continue to come in. Thank you for them all. Joan’s death is not something that can be “fixed” by prayers and good wishes; nevertheless, I do have a sense of being wrapped in what is sometimes called “the everlasting arms”…

            But in terms of last week’s column….

Ruth Shaver wrote, “Your observation that Palm Sunday is not a day of triumph came late to me as a pastor. I rarely used this Sunday before Easter as Passion Sunday, content to let the story unfold through the week. And then it dawned on me that people were dropping out of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday observances… I have moved to using this Sunday to tell the story of Jesus from Palm Sunday through the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, inviting church members to participate in that telling in various ways. People seem to be hungry for ‘the rest of the story’ even if they can't or don't come out for services during Holy Week. This year, despite the closure of our in-person worship experience for safety due to SARS-CoV-2, our online worship service moves through the week and includes communion to celebrate at home. Perhaps this year, more than many others in my lifetime, people will take in the story and find deeper meaning both in the events of Sunday, Thursday, and Friday, and in the resurrection that awaits us next week, whether in our sanctuaries or not.”

Tom Watson agreed: “Make of it what we will, Palm Sunday is a sombre day, not a parade. Perhaps this year, when we can't go to church because the church isn't open, gives us the opportunity to reflect upon the real reason for its importance in the Christian year.”

Robert Caughell wondered if Jesus made the decision to go to Jerusalem to die himself,  “Or if the decision had been made for him by God; Jesus was just fulfilling prophesy? As Jesus was entering one gate into Jerusalem, Pilate was entering the opposite gate.” 

            As others have noted, Jesus’ procession was at least peaceful; Pilate’s was of military might.

Steve Roney: The Catholic Church certainly does not celebrate Palm Sunday as triumphant. The story of Jesus entering Jerusalem to acclaim is sometimes told outside the church, before the mass, in a procession; but the Gospel reading is the passion and death.

            I find it hard to believe that any other denomination reads it all as triumphant. They would have to forget about Good Friday and Easter. They would have to lose the plot of the Gospel as a whole. Is that likely?

Laurna  Tallman anticipated today’s theme: “Thank you for voicing the terrible ambivalence of Palm Sunday. Of course, that terrible ambivalence resides in all of us who join the cheering crowd and then betray our own beloved Teacher. 

            “Sometimes, the only way we can deal with our own treachery is to blame someone else for it -- even the Teacher. And sometimes the very best we can do is so inadequate it might as well be called treachery. 

            “As we look back on the first Palm Sunday through the prism of the miracle we call ‘Easter,’ we also can view the present pandemic as a potential ‘reset’ for our troubled world. We are trying to imagine the Easter that might come from this global disaster.”

Bob Rollwagen suggested there were reasons why the Jerusalem dwellers  “just didn’t get it. Everything was word of mouth, neighbour to neighbour. No public education. They had an excuse.”

            Then he took it into the present: “When the economic first world with news and social media get hoodwinked by a sly marketing self-declared leader when all the facts are public knowledge, we should not be surprised when a real problem arises. They just didn’t get it and still don’t. This is the truly sad part about what we are watching. They follow him and not their proven medical leaders. Even now, over three months in, they do not know where it is going. Maybe I should say they don’t want to be truthful and say where it is going.

            “Jesus was as clear as he could be and accomplished more than any world leader has since. He did not have certainty as to the results of his action except by having knowledge of their standard approach to dealing with unruly crowds and politically sensitive gossip. The leader we are watching south of our border has no clue where this could go, he is focused on his election. He has been wearing the hat for months. He will be remembered as The Covid President and will not be celebrated.”

One last comment about bereavement, from Patricia Kristie: “It has been two years now and I just recently attended a bereavement group. I put off going because I had facilitated such groups and didn’t think I could benefit. However, I was wrong. Just being in a circle of people knowing the same feelings and not having to explain or justify your emotional state was very comforting.

            “I have also concluded that the feeling of emptiness has logical reason beyond the obvious. When both love deeply, your energies are intertwined and shared. When one leaves,, they take that shared part of their energy that was literally in you, leaving a space to now be filled by your own energy, an identity shift or crisis that is unexpected. And it takes time to find out who this new different you is.

            “Untangling the emotion of real loss from the state of feeling sorry for oneself is a bit of a challenge too.”

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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PROMOTION STUFF…

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think some of these links are spam.)

                       Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” is an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca. He set up my webpage, and he doesn’t charge enough.

                       I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also runs beautiful pictures. Her Thanksgiving presentation on the old hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, Is, well, beautiful -- https://www.traditionaliconoclast.com/2019/10/13/for/

                       Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)

ALVA WOOD ARCHIVE

                       The late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures now have an archive (don’t ask how this happened) on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. Feel free to browse all 550 columns.