Compassion Is the Cure

A little bit of stress can expose many cracks.

What is the tensile strength of our society? How much duress can our community endure before we fracture and turn upon each other?

The greatest betrayals in life are never physical — as when our body buckles under the force of an attack — but psychogenic — as when we realize our beliefs never had a basis. Do we rightfully believe that society has our back?

The current state of panic concerning the Coronavirus is at an inflection point. From here, do we as a collective diverge or do we converge?

Medically-speaking, the prescription has been for divergence. Maintain social distance, we are told.

Words are powerful, and here I believe the words are poorly chosen.

Were I a policymaker, I would have encouraged “physical distance.” Social distance makes it seem like we should somehow spurn each other. In times of need, this instinct to close ourselves from others is 180 degrees wrong. When there is a crisis, we must turn spiritually towards each other, rather than away. When the bonding strength of our society is tested by the weight of a threatening force, we must coalesce our atomic energy, rather than allow our bonds to shear.

We should maintain physical distance but encourage emotional proximity.

William Shakespeare waxed poetic about romantic love, but I think the sonneteer’s words could be repurposed for our love of one another.

Excerpted:

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark…

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

Does love for our fellow American look like it will bear out to the edge of doom?

That seems unlikely if our civic leaders reflex first to their baser side and resort instinctively to “Otherism.”

Is the Coronavirus a “Chinese” virus? I suppose it could be if it spoke Chinese or held a Chinese passport. But no, it is a human virus. It affects humans regardless of race or creed. It is a species-level threat.

Could you imagine where we would be if it primarily infected only one race or nationality? How fast would the remover remove that segment from our society?

What the Coronavirus presents to us is really a test. It is a test of our humanity and a litmus test for our virtue. Can we rise to the challenge and stick with each other? Will we clear the supermarket shelves or will we shelve our baser tendencies?

The other day I went to the grocery store to restock and ended up having a 30-minute conversation with another person waiting in front of me in the checkout line. This brought me back to those days of waiting in line for an iPhone (only imagine being handed a squishy loaf of bread instead of a gleaming white techno-gadget). Nonetheless, there was a palpable excitement, and most importantly, there was connection. It felt great to talk to a total stranger and to share our anxieties and our hopes. As my fellow market-shopper waved goodbye to me when she finally got through the self-checkout terminal, she said, “This was delightful.” And I couldn’t have agreed more.

So when you contemplate the seemingly doomsday scenario of the current Corona-crisis, quarantine not just your bodies but also your fears. Let your generosity be the contagion. Erect not walls between people but bridges.

Perform a Corona act of kindness for someone in your orbit or someone totally outside of it. Is there a loved one you haven’t reached out to in a long while? The Coronavirus provides a perfect excuse to check in. Can you accommodate the elderly person behind you by letting them take your place in line? The Coronavirus gives you the gift of grace-giving.

Under the stress of a grain of sand, an oyster produces a pearl.

From the crucible of this virus strain, what beautiful purity can we extract?

In this time of crisis, can compassion be the cure?