Tag: COVID-19
COVID-19, One Year On, Pt. I: Threnody for a Buried Nation
One year ago tonight, I sat in the bar of the Hotel George in downtown Washington, DC, waiting for my friend to arrive. The TV in the corner was tuned to ESPN, but for once there was no game on....
That Others May Live: Fetal Cell Lines and Vaccine Production
The world breathed a collective sigh of relief at news that multiple vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 were found to be effective. No sooner had this news reached us before there was a moral greaseball gumming up...
Contemplating the Covid-19 Classroom: Pandemic as Our Sacred Present
The county in which I teach just released its tentative plan for reopening schools in August 2020. Scanning it, I saw my previous daily routine of leading children through learning, singing, and creating replaced with a new routine—one of taking...
Be Fearful as Christ was Fearful
Be not afraid. Thus does Holy Scripture instruct the people of God time and again. In every manner of situation, God or Christ or an angel of the Lord disarms the fright of mere mortals overawed by divine glory or...
Economics Turn Homeward
COVID-19 uncertainties provide a cultural moment for re-evaluating what really constitutes the good life. While the mandatory homecoming of sorts drags on, it sheds fresh and favorable light on home economies of simplicity and some measure of self-sufficiency. Stay-at-home orders...
The Cross Amidst a Plague: Choosing Cruciformity Over Self-Interest
In the weeks leading to Easter, Americans found themselves, religious or not, on an enforced fast from normal life. The liturgical feelings associated with Lent became the daily realities of uneasiness, mourning, fear. There are the real personal fears, the...
The Politics of Mask-Wearing
As many parts of our country move away from lock-downs and Americans begin to go about our business, the question of whether to mask or not has moved nearer to the center of our national consciousness. While it might seem...
The Populists and the Pandemic
Recently the world commemorated VE day, celebrating the vast global effort to defeat fascism, an inhuman ideology which sacrificed life on the altar of materialism. The Queen gave a speech to her quarantined subjects: declaring that ‘our streets are not...
Crisis of Vulnerability
I once pronounced 2020 as my personal recovery year. My wife and I were looking over my calendar and feeling almost giddy—no air travel, no moving dates, no surprises. It was October 2019 and she had spent a couple weeks...
The Case for Donating Your Stimulus Check
During a pandemic, it always feels dark. Many future unknowns await us. But we can learn from an unknown Jewish prisoner who penned this line in a poem he wrote within his concentration camp cell.