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29
Mar
2020
My grocery store has a sign up at its cash registers: “Due to the COVID-19 virus, we no longer accept reusable grocery bags.” Instead, they’ll give away free plastic bags.
Not that long ago, the same store encouraged reusable bags, to cut back on single-use plastic bags made from fossil fuels that ended up in landfill sites. Or swirling around the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
I cite that as a single instance of the way the coronavirus panic is suddenly upsetting -- rightly or wrongly -- many of the notions that we used to take for granted.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: COVID-19, pandemic, distancing, isolation
26
It all makes me reconsider the purpose of a funeral or memorial service.
It’s not simply an occasion for glowing eulogies.
The popular term “Celebration of Life” seems to me to be both a euphemism and a misnomer. We may indeed celebrate who that person WAS. But we do it because she ISN’T.
We don’t sing the “Hallelujah Chorus” at “celebrations of life.” Or warble “For she’s a jolly good fellow…” We don’t jive in the aisles, pop balloons, or light fireworks.
No. We gather to grieve.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: grief, COVID-19, funerals, memorial services
15
As Scott Gilmore editorialized in Maclean’s, “It’s not the end of the world, it just feels that way.”
Gilmore recalled his childhood days, reading a framed poem on a church wall. He assumed it must be “a piece of ancient wisdom, a psalm from the Old Testament.”
It was neither. It was a prayer written by American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, in the 1930s:
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.”
It’s commonly called the “Serenity Prayer.” Alcoholics Anonymous popularized it. Other self-help programs have picked it up.
Are prayers the answer to today’s chaos?
Tags: prayer, COVID-19, Scott Gilmore, Macleans, Desiderata
8
The dominant news story of the last few weeks (aside from the American media’s obsession with the Democratic primaries) has been the spread and effects of the new coronavirus, officially dubbed COVID-19.
Medically, it’s a relatively minor illness -- far less fearsome than, say, cancer, heart disease, or obesity. As I write this column, in midweek, COVID-19 has spread to 46 countries, but resulted in only 3,100 deaths worldwide. The whole U.S. has had only 135 cases, with just 11 deaths; Canada, only 35 cases in total, with no deaths at all. (Figures depend on the source and date.)
There are times when our collective reaction feels like a tempest in a teapot.
By comparison, the 2009 H1N1 virus caused 12,500 deaths in the US alone. And that figure is annually surpassed by the ordinary, common, garden-variety flu which will kill about 18,000 people in the U.S. this year...
Tags: corona virus, COVID-19, Spanish flu, mortality rate