What's Good About the Coronavirus Pandemic?

You've got to: accentuate the positive;
Eliminate the negative;
Latch onto the affirmative;
Don't mess with Mr. In-Between!    Bing Crosby Song
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-sz-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=sz&p=accentuate+the+positive+song#id=14&vid=9b5ebe50a0c345464e6ca07462af4312&action=click

I wouldn't worry about that!   Paca

I have heard people rant and rave and bellow
That we're done and we might as well be dead,
But I'm only a cockeyed optimist
And I can't get it into my head.   Cockeyed Optimist, South Pacific, Rogers and Hammerstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao4gKsFpqys

Do not be afraid.   2003 University of Notre Dame Valedictory Address echoing St. John Paul echoing Jesus

Looking at the positive, the "half-full," is a wholesome habit. This is not to be unrealistic; not to ignore or even minimize the gravity and suffering of the situation. Our faith especially encourages us: that God "makes all things work for the good of those who love him;" that the permissive (contrast to the direct) will of God allows evil only to bring forth more good; and that God's ever-new marvelous works always elicit, even at the darkest times, our gratitude and praise. Such thinking is an antidote to the ultra-mega-uber-pandemic of anxiety that is worse than the flu itself! So, here's some of the best things about this virus:

1. Republicans and Democrats, president and governors and mayors are all cooperating beautifully to contain this threat. Such unity was unimaginable even a few weeks ago! We are enjoying, at least for the moment, a national unity that emerges only in the face of a colossal threat: Let's Celebrate!

2. The private and public sector, business and government, are also working together in a way that transcends the normal competition (as for example, should medical coverage be taken over by the state and thus eliminate private insurance?) This too will pass but will leave a residual memory that state and business can get along!

3. The virus is striking our country at a good time: just as the warm weather is approaching. It is unclear how vulnerable it is to heat, but the probability is that this seasonal change will help us.

4. We are blessed to have such sophisticated science that has significant, if limited, understanding of how it spreads and how to combat it.

5. Our economy has a marvelous resiliency to it: while the stock market has tanked, we are confident that when the virus passes it will rebound.

6. The troubling trends of globalization, which have provoked the Trump-Brexit phenomena and the movement towards nationalism and localism, are counteracted by the need to contain and protect. There is a positive dimension to this. Even as there has been cooperation between nations.

7.  Families, parents and children, will have time together, hopefully some of it quality time, as schools close and parents wean themselves from careerist, work-aholic compulsions to care for their own.

8. More time for quiet, conversation at home, prayer, reading, relaxation and peace.

9.  It is truly marvelous that the young are not vulnerable to the worst symptoms of the virus.

10.  Regarding the elderly: average age of deaths is 80 years to my knowledge. To be honest: the militant euthanasia movement is a witness to the fact that some of us are living too long: dependent upon advanced technology, even in a comatose state, or lingering for months while suffering with no hope of recovery. I understand the demand for euthanasia by those who lack faith: they cannot defeat death but they want to control death and suffering. But the earlier demise of some of our octogenarians and novogenarians may be merciful in that it spares them that end-of-life suffering.

11. The inexorable, inevitable, necessary, oppressive and even totalitarian nature of our technocratic, bureaucratic society is suddenly undermined by a microscopic virus. Hallelujah! The alleged progressive movement of history (Darwinian evolution or Hegelian dialectic) is stopped in its steps! Nothing in history is determined! Chance, Surprise, Randomness, Eventfulness, Drama and Freedom have risen! Hallelujah!  (Happily, I am out of the closet as an anarchist...follower of Ivan Illich, Jacques Ellul, Wendell Berry, Dorothy Day, the David Schindlers and others...with a deep suspicion of the entire system, despite all its good aspects!)

12. The Benedict Option, the distancing from the impersonal mega-mechanisms of our society (state, global business, academy, political parties, entertainment, internet, etc.) in order to strengthen local communities of family, faith, friendship and fruitfulness is given a boost by the virus.

13. Catholics, suddenly deprived of our Sunday Eucharist, may develop ("absence makes the heart grow fonder") a deep, passionate longing for our Lord in this sacrament (which remains available in daily mass in our Archdiocese of Newark.)

14.  We are all reminded that all our expertise and sophistication leaves us "out of control" in the face of death, random natural events, finitude and contingency. This can be, for some, an invitation to trust and surrender, in serenity, to a Higher Power!

And so, let us relax, give thanks, and enjoy this sabbath and all the new gifts it brings!