In America this week, we have seen sudden dramatic resurgence of Covid-19 related to re-opening of businesses and the failure to maintain the basic protection of masks, social distancing, and safer- at- home policies. Many areas still continue to strive for a balance between the need for isolation and the need for an economic revival that includes work-related income. Some regions have now backtracked away from the economic demand and encourage staying at home; some regions have opted for standstill--not taking any forward steps from their early attempts at reopening but not regressing either; many areas are still in watching/waiting mode, as cases rise. The question seems to be what are we, as a society, willing to risk: further economic disasters, or further health tragedies?
Yet there are no simple answers because these are not independent variables. They impact one another. Stay-at-home is about preventing illness. Illness is costly, financially and in other ways. If we are ill, we are not productive. We lose effectiveness: The body will come first or we simply cannot function. When we are talking about large numbers of a social body becoming ill, some requiring weeks and weeks of recovery time, and many who do not recover, entire industries are inevitably impacted--not by stay-at-home policies, but by overwhelming illness and death. At the same time, loss of income on a collective scale over time weakens the structure of a community that is dependent on the resources and stability businesses and jobs provide. In modern society, there is a clear cut relationship between lack of income and vulnerability to illness.
Moving through the Pandemic spiritually means seeing beyond any division in the process of healing. Again, these are not two competing processes; we are all interdependent. Looking beyond division also includes looking beyond the division of spiritual and material, of life and its Source. Individual reflection deepens as you look for what unifies. (Susan Nettleton)