More on Societal Scurvy
We linked this in earlier this week, but perhaps we should have saved it for today:
A series of related items appeared in the news today, and we'd pondered linking this in here.
The them of this entry from Catholic Stuff You Should Know has to deal with the impact of Sunday services in unknown and unseen ways. It's excellently done, and deals with community, or lack of it, in this Pandemic Era.
We run a series here every Sunday, as the few folks who routinely stop in know, called Sunday Morning Scenes. These are, of course, just pictures from our companion blogs in which we've photographed churches, for the most part, although occasionally they include commentary.
There's no doubt that the pandemic has been hard on community, and that very much includes churches. In my own region the Bishop of Cheyenne has suspended the obligation to attend Mass that Catholics normally have. That is, church attendance isn't optional for Catholics, normally. Right now it is here.
For a time the churches opened back up and when they did, I resumed going to Mass. I missed it in more ways than one and felt an obligation to do so. Indeed, I also was critical of the Bishops in the US stopping public Masses in general and felt they should not have.
Now, however, that we are in the thick of the pandemic I've not gone the last few weeks. I may be in a category that's distinctly different from some others around here, but having watched Coronavirus rip through the legal community, killing at least one local lawyer and disabling, at least temporarily, some others, I'm taking this seriously. Indeed, I'm in the "avoidance" category of people who isn't going to stores, and isn't going to restaurants, and the like right now. I'm stilling going into my office as I have to, but for the next few weeks I'm riding this out by minimalizing my contact with people as much as I can.
There's no doubt, however, that this has crossed over to a point that's having a negative personal impact on the psyche of a lot of people. In today's news there are reports that alcohol and marihuana abuse are at an all time high. Pornography use is as well. Both of these are addressed in the Societal Scurvy episode mentioned above. In Japan suicide deaths for last month exceeded the the number of COVID deaths in that country and are back up at rates last scene in 2015, which of course is not all that long ago.
At some point, something has to be done, but what? Will we break through this and be back out in January?
On being cautious, while I rarely mention it I had a childhood asthma condition and after having talked to several people who have had it, and survived it, I'm pretty sure that the common views in some quarters that its not as bad as people claim don't hold up, at least for some people. So, yes, I'm now worried. Not panicked, but worried.
And I'm worried about society too. People holed up and not getting out at all, some people naively fleeting to rural areas in the belief that it can't get to them there. Things are not good right now.
I wonder if people dealt with this better in 1917-18? I'm not convinced we are dealing with this well right now. Indeed, in a lot of ways, I think we're less well situated to deal with it now, than we were then.
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