What else?

Is there anything else to be talking about right now?

I remember vividly the moment, a few weeks ago, when the enormity of this crisis really hit me. I was sitting on the sofa across from my husband, we were still planning my son’s wedding party and the numbers had started going up here at home, and I looked at my husband and said in a matter of fact tone, “This is a disaster.”

Four words. This-is-a-disaster.

All this time, we in the west have been living a charmed life. When the tsunami happened in Indonesia, we mobilized to help. When the earthquakes in Iran and Turkey and other catastrophes, they were things that happened far away.

More and more, that spirit of generosity has been fading.

It’s because people right here in North America have been having a harder time surviving. When you have less, you give less, right?

That’s to be expected, I guess. And then Syria and the Rohingya and Uighurs, and then Trump began locking up kids in cages and people were more excited about the feuds between stupid celebrities.

But all this time I’ve been nursing a feeling of dread. I think it comes through in some of my posts. I’ve been looking at the statistics that no one is talking about, like the fact that between the years 2000 and 2017 the rate of children five years old to seventeen years old committing suicide or trying to has doubled. And in adults, it’s gone up 300%. And I’ve been following psychiatrists who predicted a catastrophe under Trump and given his narcissistic personality disorder, that he would do everything he could to make it worse.

Why does Trump keep talking about how many more will kill themselves??? Apparently, he gets off on suffering. (Other people’s suffering that is.)

Isn’t it awful that for years, while we’ve lived our lives in an oblivious manner, while kids are locked up in cages, Uighurs are imprisoned in concentration camps, Rohingya, Palestinians, people all over the world are suffering, isn’t it awful now that this disease which we cannot even see with our naked eye, is imprisoning all of us?

God help us all.

Recently some online newsletter claimed that some physical brawl between two celebrity siblings that was shown on some reality was actually worse than it appeared. What I found encouraging was that I wasn’t the only person who thought, “Who the heck cares?”

People trying to snag the spotlight, that’s all. These useless celebrities know that if they don’t make headlines they risk becoming irrelevant and that would provide the death knell for their ‘influencer’ status. It’s about time.

I’ve scaled back. I take care of what is within my family circle, especially my aged parents. Now more than ever, we need to focus on what’s real.

And if it’s of any comfort, I keep thinking of this very old fable from Afghanistan, and I will leave it here for you in case you also find it soothing. There was a very good wise king, and his people wanted to thank him for his service so they got together to make him a ring but wondered what to inscribe on it. Eventually they found the perfect inscription: This too shall pass.

When he received the gift from his people he asked them what it meant. And the people answered, “When you’re in the midst of good times, when everything is going well, we hope you look down at the ring and remind yourself that ‘this too shall pass’. And plan for when things take a turn. And when you’re in the worst of times, we want you to look down and remind yourself, ‘this too shall pass’ because nothing stays bad forever.

Everything is transient, and our life is transient, so make plan for what will come ahead.

Don’t take for granted the life that God has given you. Plan for your life like you will live forever but live your life like you will die tomorrow for one day, you surely shall.

God bless everyone. Stay safe and remember, this too shall pass.