In the time of COVID-19: Community compassion ultimately is a personal, not governmental act

Watching what is becoming the daily White House briefing on COVID-19 (a.k.a. the Corona Virus), I am impressed with the all-out assault on slowing and defeating the spread of this 21st century pestilence.

Nearly a trillion dollars committed today, overall. More to the point personally, people over age 60, like me, are strongly advised to just stay home, and if outside, avoid close contact.

I joked with my cousin, who lives in the United Kingdom (where even more stringent self-isolation has been ordered) that pretty soon we old folks will be required to ring hand bells and shout, if not "unclean!" like lepers of old, then perhaps, "Hey, seniors here, steer clear! (followed by a muttered, "Some people's kids . . . ")

We need a slogan, a catchy jingle. Imagine, gray-haired grandparent types with canes, doing a "Puttin' On the Ritz" type dance while singing:

"If you're gray and you don't know where to go to

Make sure to not go where youngsters sit,

When you cough or spit

Different types of wear all kinds of masks

Some just paper, some rags and some with filters fit

For when you cough or spit

Dressed head-to-toe like limpin' hazmat troopers

Trying not to look like a feverish Gary Cooper

Super-duper . . . ."

Now I know, this is serious stuff. We need to take care, for ourselves -- and on behalf of others as well. Then again, it's NOT the Black Plague (up to 200 million dead in the 14th century, roughly a third to half the population of Europe included). 

It's also not the Spanish Flu (20-50 million dead worldwide in 1918-19, 675,000 Americans), Swine Flu (1 million dead globally in the late 1960s, 70,000 in the U.S.), SARS (some 775 deaths from 2002-2003, about 10 percent of those who were infected), or even more recent Ebola (an estimated 1,200 worldwide 2014-2015, but very few here). 

In the U.S., so far, about 5,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19, and about 90 have died; globally about 170,000 have been infected and more than 6,600 have died. The mortality rate is about 2-3 percent, and most of those victims are elderly people, many of them with pre-existing immune or cardiopulmonary weaknesses.

What makes COVID-19 unique is that is seems to spread much quicker and more easily than its more deadly SARS  viral cousin. That's why it is a pandemic, and that also is why it is not the End of Days ( i.e. the Pale Horse of pestilence running amok).

Still, this is certainly a time, a noted above, for a wartime footing, as it were, to fight the pandemic. But ultimately, it will come down to how we react as communities, and individuals, with compassion for each other. That can take the form of calling a self-quarantined neighbor offering to shop for groceries, or to share what we ourselves have stocked up; staying in contact with loved ones from afar; and personally, taking these suddenly empty hours as opportunities to read, reflect, contemplate and appreciate the good times, and pray for their return -- along with a deeper gratitude and determination to never take them, or our friends and loved ones, for granted.

For me -- my heart "upgraded" in the past decade with first an artificial aortic valve and then a pacemaker, as well as two previous bouts of pneumonia -- this crisis has meant reluctant compliance with the various COVID-19 restrictions. So, that's "social distancing" while out talking daily walks, entirely avoiding markets and theaters and gyms, etc.

The worst part for me? Suspending attendance at Sunday services at my beloved Sts. Peter & Paul Orthodox Church.

Instead, late last week, I attended Communion Thursday morning with less than a dozen others. It's the sort of "off-off Broadway" approach for Orthodoxy, I suppose; early weekday services are lightly attended (compared to the hundreds on Sundays). It was eerie, standing so far apart from other parishioners, but the liturgy and Eucharist were spiritual anchors in a troubling time.

It will be interesting to see, once this pandemic eases, to see how hungry believers are for gathering for the prayers, chants and communion we have so taken for granted in the past.

Wouldn't it be great if that time of reunion, and perhaps renewed Lenten devotion, comes by Pascha (Easter?)

Faith-based fostering: Pastor remembers harsh upbringing, works to help today's lost kids

Here is my last feature article for AGNews, (just click on the previous link) ending a wonderful 12-year association. 
All good things come to an end, and with my recent changes in personal faith (to Orthodoxy) it seemed the right thing to do. May Our Lord bless and enlighten all who call on His name.

Faith-based Fostering 

Ask Pastor Rick L. Smith where his compassion for foster and parentless children comes from, and he’ll tell a century-old story, one that began with his grandfather’s painful orphanage odyssey in the wake of 1918’s deadly influenza pandemic.

Smith’s grandfather, at the time still a toddler and one of five siblings, was placed in an Oklahoma foundlings home; he did not leave until 12 years later, when his just-married, but still teenaged older sister in Texas took custody. That arrangement didn’t last long.

“As you can imagine, it did not work well for a newlywed 18-year-old girl to try to parent her 14-year-old brother, so he left and began to live on his own at a very young age,” Smith explains.

Even in his later years, Smith’s grandfather, who died in 1999, was uncomfortable discussing specifics of that period of his younger life. His grandson suspects the orphanage stay included neglect and abuse.

Smith left behind more than a decade of pastoring Assemblies of God churches to found and direct Pathway Family Services in 2006. While pastoring, he saw the tremendous need for godly foster parents. After a season of prayer and fasting, he decided to fully engage in ministry to care for marginalized youth.

He, along with wife and ministry partner, Jane, plus hundreds of families from multiple, mostly evangelical, Christian churches have done just that over the past 14 years. An estimated 4,000 children, from infants to teenagers, found emergency shelter, short- and long-term foster care, and hundreds of adoptions into forever homes during that span. . . .

To read the story in its entirety, click on this link: https://news.ag.org/en/News/Faith-Based-Fostering

Prepping for the Poo-ocalypse: Folks, toilet paper won't wipe out the Coronavirus

Visiting Costco, I cannot get over the hordes of people stocking up on water and toilet paper.


The water, pushed on stacked carts by, in my observation at least, mostly Latino shoppers, I can sort of understand. I’ve noticed that even when the country isn’t in the grip of mostly media-hyped Coronavirus pandemic fear, Latinos shoppers seem to buy massive amounts of purified water in bottles and jugs. Despite assurances that our water here is safe, I suspect they where they come from it is not potable, etc.


That’s not meant to be an ethnic putdown at all. Indeed, given the numbers of spoiled white Americans who get sick drinking questionable water on trips down south, despite the abundant travelers' warnings and the ready example of water-caution exercised by our wiser Latino neighbors, who do you think has more smarts?


But(t) the TP obsession? I see a lot of Latinos recently stocking up on that, too (and there have been shortages in several central and southern American countries of late, so ...) , but nowhere near the scenes of Charmin junkies pushing crateloads of the stuff . . . in Utah, those folks seem often comprised of two or more women clad in gingham, ankle-length dresses; a slew of stairstep kids; and an older male leading the way to the checkout stands.


Meanwhile, paper towels seem untouched. Or paper napkins, boxes of tissues. Seemingly good second-choices for bum cleansing.


And has anyone asked for leftover corn cobs from Cracker Barrel’s dumpsters? Hmm? Or even bought out all the used socks at the D.I.?

And really, even if you run out of TP, there’s always that neighbor’s yippy, miniature wire-haired terrier. . .

Or in a dire emergency, a visit to the car wash in the dead of the night.


That particularly dark car wash bay, the one in the middle perhaps . . . and setting the wand on power wash and then rinse! One minute, all done.


No one thinks of alternatives, there’s just no innovation anymore.


That’s what made America great, you know. Corn cobs, Sears Catalogs, and outhouses.


Sheesh.