Pandemic Priorities
WW III has begun! It is very real. It is not at all the sort of war we expected. It has, as C.S. has said “just that queer twist about it that real things have.” The entire globe is battling not one another this time, but an alien invasion. Not from Mars, or Venus, or a galaxy far, far away, but from within our planetary boundaries, yet nevertheless “alien.”
This time it is not our military personnel that occupy the front lines, but our medical personnel. Our physicians and researchers, nurses and lab technicians, pharmacists and volunteers. The enemy is all but invisible, reckless in whom it attacks, and most deadly!
Here are some shocking statistics as best I could decipher them (estimates vary and are generally reported as a range rather than a fixed number.):
WW I (July 28, 1914 – Nov. 11, 1918 = 1,568 days), 20,000,000 deaths = 12,755 per day.
WW II (Sept. 1, 1939 – Sept. 2, 1945 = 2,194 days), 75,000,000 deaths = 34,184 per day.
WW III (Thur. Jan. 9, 2020 — as of Tue., May 5, 2021, 09:09 GMT = 483 days), 3,242,644 deaths = 6,714 per day.
Worldmeters further reports that, as of the above time, there were 155,025,425 confirmed cases of Covid-19 infections worldwide, adding “The fatality rate is still being assessed.”
Defeating Covid has become ‘Priority One’ world-wide. Yet less than two years past not a thought of it had ever entered anyone’s mind. How quickly our priorities can change!
Reality has this way about it, of smacking you right in the face with its demands and urgency. Like a an ice slip, a road accident, a physician’s diagnosis. Whammo! So this is my situation…. This is my true and present reality!
C.S. Lewis was speaking of Christianity in the statement I cited above. He wrote…
“Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have.” – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
The greatest priority in this life is not surviving the duration of it, but preparing for the eternal life which follows it. You will exist forever. Deep in your soul you know this (Eccl. 3:11). The only question remaining is “Where.”
Some 700 years BC the prophet Micah cried “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8).
Jesus entreats, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…” (Matt. 6:33a), and asks “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36)
Make Him your priority today, and every day.
Press on…
Check the worldwide Covid-19 deaths total and daily increase here.
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