This pandemic did not go easy on us — this large, passionate, diverse group of people that makes up our society.
Putting aside for a moment the unfathomable number of nearly a million lives that have been lost, the immeasurable impact is the isolation, the loneliness, and the fear this pandemic has sowed within us and our communities.
I look into the eyes of my neighbors and I see suffering.
I go to Church on Sundays and hear sermons on the devastation a local school shooting has wreaked on our community.
I turn on the TV, read the paper, listen to the radio and everywhere I go I am being told we are at war.
War with one another. War with our neighbors. War with our friends. War with anyone who holds a different perspective or belief.
And, we are the foot soldiers who are called to fight this war — called to subscribe, to organize, to canvass, to donate, to post, to share, to persuade, to shame, to hate.
I have fought in that war. I consumed every piece of news. Obsessed over every fact (or alternative fact). Went on political tirades. Donated money. Shared on social media.Wrote blog posts. Marched in the streets.
All with the conviction that it was my moral duty to fight in this war. To spend my time, my energy, my life as a soldier in this battle.
But, when I look around at this battlefield.
This battle that has been raging for so long.
And,
I don’t see a better world.
I don’t see a better country.
I don’t see a better community.
I don’t see progress.
I don’t see happiness.
I don’t see love.
All I see is pain and destruction.
For miles.
This battle plan isn’t working.
I am not winning.
Are you?
