Hope Springs Eternal

For the past thirty-plus day the world has been asked to stop in it’s tracks in order to stop the pandemic of COVID-19 from spreading and leaving historical proportions of dead in it’s wake.  It has forced us all to stay close to home.  To work from home or to be unemployed.  It has forced health care workers to put themselves in harms way to care for the sick that are coming to them.

Busy city streets are deserted.  Store fronts closed.  Life sucked out of them as if  a vacuum has removed all signs of life.  We are waging a war that we cannot visibly see – a virus so small yet so dangerous.  Yet our city’s look as though there was a war with their shuttered windows and locked doors. 

Today, as I took a walk around my temporary neighborhood I spotted this rose.  This perfect, beautiful red rose right next to the sidewalk.  I couldn’t help but stop to smell it as sometimes the fragrance can be so lovely.  This one was not exuding any strong smell, but that did not stop it from being any less perfect.  It is a gift from God that reminds us that spring is coming, that there is hope even in the darkest of times.

There is hope in the midst of everything going on in our world right now.  While borders have shut down, stores have closed, we have heard of less violence, of less real-time wars in the news.  No mass shootings because there are no masses to be found.  With parents now having to be teachers, they are learning just how much teachers should be valued.  They realize that teachers must have the patience of saints because they deal with a classroom full of kids – and they only have to deal with their own.

In some areas, there are families walking and biking together now that they have time with their work life gone or reduced.  Neighbors being more neighborly.  People cooking more at home – or ordering from small restaurants in order to keep their doors open. 

Air pollution has nearly gone away without all the cars out driving around.  Gas prices have dropped.  It’s a throwback to the “good ol’ days”.

It does not diminish the fact that hundred of thousands of people are suffering without paychecks.  That the working poor have become even poorer at this time.  We, as a community, need to come together and do what we can for these people.  Help with clothes, food, support. 

Some businesses have closed their doors forever.  Those that survive will take a long time to recoup their losses. 

My hope is that we do not return to the normal we’ve been accustomed to – that we return to a better version of normal.  A one where more people help people, where more neighbors are neighborly.  A world where we watch out for one another.  That when we remove the face masks, people will see us for our smiles and not our skin colors.  That we appreciate those who sacrifice for us on a different warfront.  The nurses and doctors, the grocery store clerks and food delivery folk.  That we appreciate our families and our time together that was forced on us but we want to continue when we no longer have to be self-quarantined.

Like the rose that is blossoming and showing us her glory – so too will our world when it is time to begin the process of reopening.  Even in this time of quarantine, this rose shows us that there is hope.  That spring is here and better days will be coming.  If God cares so much about creating this simple yet beautiful creation of a rose – how much more do you think He cares for His children?

Together we will make it through this time of change, this time of stress, this time of evolving.  Keep the faith.

Here is another photo I snapped today.  John 3:16