I’ve had so many conversations lately that at some point hit an “a-ha” moment, one that goes something like this: “Can you even believe it was less than a month ago that everything was going great. It seems like an eternity…” The corollary is also true. Can you believe it was just over a decade ago that we were pulling out of a recession that was quite likely the worst economy that most of us ever experienced?
There’s nothing new under the sun
Remember the Dot-Com crash in 1999? Or Black Monday in 1987? Or the massive inflation and unemployment that characterized the early 1980s. For most of us those are at best hazy, vague memories and there are few left of us who lived through the Great Depression following the stock market crash in 1929.
And that’s just the financial markets. Plagues are nothing new, of course. And many of us have gotten a crash course over the last couple weeks. We’ve learned that in the late 1950s the Asian Flu killed more than a million people worldwide. Dwarfing that was the Spanish flu in 1918 where estimates say a third of the world’s population were infected and deaths are estimated around 50 million. Yep, you read that right. And the list actually goes on. And on.
I find it intriguing how caught off guard we are (and I’m certainly including myself in that) when we’re suddenly left reeling in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly the speed and magnitude of both the infection and the worldwide reaction. It’s as thought the prosperity we’ve experienced for more than a decade has produced a kind of collective amnesia about the brokenness of the world we live in and at the same time created a set of expectations that are so baked into our view of the world that they’ve become almost a basis for life.
Who is this ‘we’ you’re talking about anyway?
I should probably clarify the “we” I’m talking about since that’s germane the point. The we that I’m referring to is a we of class, “upper middle” or “mass affluent,” mostly white, but not entirely, Christian or at least “churched.” This is a ‘we’ that by virtue of the time and place in which we were born have had the privilege of experiencing extraordinary prosperity and opportunity, the likes of which much of the world has never known. But like a fish that doesn’t know it’s wet, this ‘we’ is by and large oblivious to the ‘they,’ even when the ‘they’ are just on the other side of town.
I’ve been thinking a lot about St. James’ letter, which he starts off by saying “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.” I think we generally hear this as simply a noble sentiment or a churchy buzz-phrase because we read all too quickly over the implicit assumption. Which is, of course, the part where he says when, not if. And because for many of us the very idea of inevitable trials has become trivialized by a culture that trades in material prosperity, instant gratification and constant entertainment, the idea of anything as life altering as say a shelter in place order in response to a global pandemic would have seemed asinine about 3½ weeks ago.
Reframing a worldview
I’d suggest that one of the most important takeaways from the current distress is an opportunity to reframe our worldview, to remember the brokenness of the world in which we live. Consider the possibility that the coronavirus is giving us a taste of things that much of rest of the world experiences on a regular basis.
Whether we’d say it explicitly or not, the view of the world that many of us hold is based on a set of expectations, things like…
- Comfort and ease is an inalienable right
- Continued economic progress with few and mild interruptions is the norm
- If we work hard (or smart) and make right choices, prosperity is inevitable
- Technology will continually improve our lives
- Ample and abundant food, shelter and medicine should be taken for granted
- With a few exceptions here and there, justice generally prevails
- We have a moral (even constitutional!) right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
But the actual experience of much of the world is one in which the realities of life are
- Tribulation
- Injustice & exploitation
- War, famine, pestilence
- The oppression of the weak by the strong
- Lack of education and the opportunity that it affords
- Lack of life’s basic necessities, things like food, shelter and medicine
- Hopelessness, shame and fear
And now suddenly we’re immersed in a plague of global proportions and the fallout is everywhere. Even our celebrities aren’t immune from virus. Fear is rampant. Our freedoms are being curtailed. Jobs are going away, businesses are on the brink of ruin. Our precious assumptions about the world as we’ve known it have been shaken, even if just for a little while.
Welcome to the real world.
Many of us know this intellectually, but rarely do we have the opportunity to learn it experientially. We spend so much time and energy trying to maximize our personal and individual life experiences that we don’t think much about (nor do we particularly care for) the fact that we share this very broken world with a lot of other people who keenly experience that brokenness every day.
I’ve been hearing a lot of commentary lately about how life as we know it has changed forever. I’m not so sure I buy that line, considering that the past is a pretty good indication of the future and the historical recovery-prosperity calculus is well documented. But the one thing that I do hope changes forever is our perspective. Perhaps, in this respect, the coronavirus is actually a once-in-a-lifetime gift, one which we should count as a joy.
“…for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:3,4