Fernando, R. (2020). A few lessons to be learned from humanity's collective battle against coronavirus. In M. Sujanthini (Ed.), Hope For Tomorrow: Lockdown Musings (pp. 45-49). Colombo Catholic Press.
Lessons to be Learnt From the Battle Against Covid-19
Dear Well-Wishers, Partners in our Life-Mission, Companions, and Friends,
Despite the prevailing anxiety, insecurity, uncertainty, social distancing, self-isolation, and total lockdown in and around us, we as an Island Nation get closer and closer to the seasonal celebrations of our Sinhala-Tamil New Year while the Christians all over the world contemplate deeply upon the passion, the death, and the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ at the Easter. Hence, during this blessed season, I would like to wish you all Faith, Hope, and Peace which both these celebrations would invite us to grow in.
Here are a few reflections and concerns that I have learned amidst the ongoing worldwide battle against COVID-19 and would like to share with you.
1. It is rightly said that if you cannot go out in this total lockdown, then go inside. Indeed this time of self-quarantining and social distancing has forced us, willingly or unwillingly, to go deep into ourselves and realize the mistakes and misuse of God, Humanity, and Our Common Home, the Earth, that we have committed so far either collectively or personally, either lawfully or stealthily, either being a developed or underdeveloped nation, etc. In its seething outbreak, the New Crown Virus seems to be taking to the fore the amount of repentance and correction that we human beings have to undergo by clinging onto our long abandoned God, the source and sustenance of life, by feeling, sharing, and caring for one another, something which we have long been neglected, and by listening to the silent groaning of our Mother Earth that we have always been passive about. When we steam 4 times a day in order to keep the Virus away, should we also steam out these lessons taught so that we would not have to correct ourselves at all in life?
2. This time of total halt throughout the world has resulted in bringing families together to talk and to laugh as a family, to share and to care for one another as a family, to eat and to fight as a family, to pray and to forgive as a family, to stay a day in and day out as a family, something which we were not so accustomed to doing. How much am I open to repent for what I have done against the bond of marriage as a husband or a wife, or against the bond of the family as a father, mother, son, daughter, an in-law, etc., and to forgive the other so that I would be able to spend this time of quarantining truthfully and joyfully and grow spiritually as a family?
3. From kindergarten to school, from school to college, from college to university, and from university to thereafter, we are often bombarded with knowledge. But we were hardly trained to be self-disciplined. Perhaps, that is why, despite being knowledgeable, we still find it strange to wash our hands properly, cover ourselves well when sneezing in public, maintain the right space with one another, stop spitting on the ground, appreciate our own local remedies, and country medicines over western interventions, grow our own food and eat healthy rather than eating fast and junk at every globalized and localized outsource. The New Coronavirus, if we see carefully, seems to be training us more assertively and more violently than ever before to go back to our own roots, be appreciative of our own wealth within, and be self-disciplined, not only for our own good but also for that of one’s neighbor. To build a self-disciplined nation, shall we at least start by taking a firm determination not to spit on Her, our Mother Earth, who bears us within her womb, the Common Home which houses us safe inside?
4. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.” Covid-19 seems to be proving it to the core. Where the world is at a standstill, where only essential services are at work, where only the basic needs are sought after and desperately fought for both in so-called civilized nations as well as in others, where the rich have to share the same destiny of a daily wager, where classification of richer nations, based on more economy-centered criteria and often asserting the Pareto principle, is proven to be a mistake, and where those nations which are at the bottom of that equation and classified as developing or under-developed countries are indeed proven to be richer in their humanitarian outreach, their closeness to God, their care for self, their proximity to the nature, and their natural resources such as drinking water, herbal medications, etc. the New Coronavirus seems to be teaching us to be satisfied with our basic human needs rather than chasing our unending greed. Can we clearly identify what are the dire needs that we cannot live without and our greed which we thought we can’t live without until the Coronavirus proved it otherwise?
5. When we had all our three meals cooked and ready at the table, we never knew what it would be to be satisfied with just one or two meals a day which is the day-to-day reality of many thousands in the world. Be thankful to God if you are still eating three meals a day. But try, if you can, to manage with two or one meal a day once in a way. It is because, by doing so, you will not only become one with those, especially the children and the elderly who die out of hunger all over the world, but it will also enable you to be prepared for the worst days possible. At the same time, please be on guard not to spill or waste food at all. Because you might be throwing the fish head or the spilled rice or the surplus of food that you cannot shovel down your throat because you’ve eaten enough. Imagine those who might not at all have eaten enough for a week or two. Try to manage at least one meal daily by recycling the leftover food. Surely, there are also certain preparations, the longer you keep them, the tastier they become. Are you open to hearing the cry of the poor and being one with them in your own manner of managing food?
6. We have in our neighborhood those who work for daily wages, who, in a total lockdown like this, face more difficulties in getting something to eat and feed their children than you do. Hence, it is important to share at least half of our home-grown products (coconut/ jackfruit/ mango/ banana/ goa/ papaya/ etc.) with them at least during this time of need, but with strict observance of the safety measures prescribed. Making someone eat a mouthful of rice with a raw-mango curry or some Polsambola is far more meritorious than adhering to one’s regular pattern of eating a main course of two or more curries and mangoes for the dessert. Because, just as the Coronavirus has struck all human beings equally, without looking into any distinction whatsoever, what matters, in the end, is not whether one went to temple or church or mosque, or whether one is white, black or brown, or whether one is rich or poor. Rather, what actually matters is whether or not one gave something to eat/drink when one’s neighbor was hungry/thirsty; Whether or not one went to see one’s neighbor when he/she was sick or was imprisoned? Whether or not one has clothed his/her neighbor when he/she was naked or shivering in the biting cold. Will you be late to grasp this truth of life at least during this time of unanimous humanitarian battle against Covid-19 all around the world?
7. If you get a chance to go out to do purchasing (during curfew lift or by way of possessing a curfew pass), please make sure that you think of your neighbors as well, especially the families with elderly people, children, daily wagers, the widows, the children living with grandparents, and the poor families. Buying one or two items extra for them (a milk packet/1 Kg of dhal/a packet of soya meat, etc.) would definitely help them to manage a meal for a day or two. It is because, even on a day of curfew lift, despite waiting in the queue at the grocery shop for about 3 and half hours, those who come on foot or on a push cycle would still be able to manage not even one-tenth of the total load that would fit into a car-dicky. Moreover, because they appear insignificant, unassuming, and uninfluential, and everybody else thinks that they are more important than them, these ordinary people are hardly given any chance to skip the queue, unlike the VIPs. Are you ready to purchase something for them or give such a person a chance to go before you in the line just to ease his/her weight of life?
8. One might argue, “The government is looking after them, and there are others who provide for them. Also, they don’t manage their money well”. It might be true. But there is something here that we all have to learn from Mother Theresa of Calcutta: “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if the drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of the missing drop." Hence, it is important to understand that no matter how much we do we cannot totally eradicate poverty with our little sharing alone. But, in the meantime, if that drop of sharing is not there, the ocean is not complete. Therefore, each and every one of us have got to do our part no sooner than later, not as a duty, but as a sign of gratitude for who and what we are today. Isn’t this time of world lockdown more appropriate to start changing our attitudes to be more useful to the world rather than being merely critical about just everything and everyone around us?
9. Looking at the way how things are and presuming how things would be in the future, I personally believe that we need to have certain short-term as well as long-term plans to face the unknown future. A substantial plan which can be incepted here can go a long way even after normalcy is restored sooner or later in life. For example, children can start working according to their own daily timetable as in school, as to when to sleep and when to wake up, when to study and when to play, when to pray and when to watch the news or use electronic media, etc. The youth and the elderly, on the other hand, can invest their time in creative arts, crafts, drawing, molding, etc., and they can also start growing plants and vegetables in their own backyard. It doesn’t matter how small or big is the space one has, for there are sundry creative ways to do it. At the initial stage itself, make it your wish that fruit of your garden is not only for you. When you have sufficiently enough for your family, then the rest belongs also to those who are hungry. Then you’ll see that your garden not only bears manyfold fruits, but you will never feel tired of tending it every morning and evening. What substantial plans have you to face the unknown future?
10. Pets are good companions. But in a time of global worldwide lockdown such as this, even they suffer together with human beings because we have made them dependent on us, we have distanced themselves from their natural habitats for our own pleasure, and we have trained them to adapt themselves to artificial environments that we live in today with limited or no freedom to exercise their natural instincts whatsoever. While waiting in the queue the other day, I saw a cow grazing so peacefully and more freely than ever before and as if she would never run out of her food supply as is the case with human beings now, and there will be no lockdown, curfew, isolation, distancing, or a lethal virus as such in the animal world whatsoever. How would these domestic pets survive if all the essential services stop for a month? Why do we make our Common Home and its species suffer because we have uprooted them from their natural habitats?
11. History has proved that whether it is naturally caused or humanly intervened, one disaster has always outsmarted the other in its intensity and degree. For example, we had a 35-year-old civil war, we had a tsunami, and we have been weeping over the brutal human carnage that took place on Easter Sunday 2019 in our country. When we have not even handled those traumas fully well, the Covid-19 had engulfed the entire world mercilessly and ruthlessly. Hence from one Easter to another, from one New Year to another, and from one coast to another, there seems to be one common enemy that we all battle today than ever before. That is our ‘selfishness’. Are we ready to recognize this enemy within us, both personally and institutionally, and defeat it once and for all in life?
May you all have a Blessed Easter Season and a Blessed New Year!
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