Homecomings and holy days

The ongoing pandemic is a global crisis, yet has (perhaps inevitably) resulted in people focusing closer to home. I swear that despite the world wide Internet of information it’s become harder to find out what’s going on outside the United States unless I specifically go looking for it. Even international news conglomerates have all their localized affiliates, and those affiliates are understandably more concerned with their proverbial backyards right now than what’s going on down the street. Perhaps it’s an outgrowth of the various quarantine lockdowns where for a lot of folk their own backyard is as far as they care to go (or even in some cases are permitted to go). The focus narrows. Like some of the classic scenes in zombie fiction, “just down the street” might as well be across a vast ocean.

So here in the States, we’re mostly focused on the States. That’s perhaps nothing new as the U.S. has historically always had its isolationist tendencies which it really only reversed from post-WWII, and the Trump administration’s friction with the U.N. and NATO was threatening to reverse course yet again. Covid-19 may have not only accelerated that but opened up new problems as our particular political system pits states against each other and against what I could certainly term as a weakened Federal government. Not so much so as the one I envisioned for the Zombie Ranch world but there’s certainly been some friction, and we haven’t even reached the forecast peak of the outbreak yet.

It could be worse, though. In case you’re wondering, India seems to be an absolute mess at the moment with thousands upon thousands of suddenly unemployed migrant workers trying to return to their rural homes. The government shut down the airports and it just meant they overloaded the buses or are trying to get home on foot. Then the government realized that these mass movements of people were potentially going to spread the virus to every far corner of the country and closed the internal borders… but now you’ve got a million plus people stranded, unemployed, and homeless wherever they happened to be, and those lucky enough to make it home might have brought an uninvited guest along that will make them wish they hadn’t been able to see and hug their loved ones.

Back to the States again, though, we’ve got a serious evangelical Christian streak in this country with a serious chip on its shoulder about government. Some of those folks are actually officials in government and have gone so far as to declare religious gatherings in their individual states “essential services” that are exempt from social distancing protocols. For those states of a more “no, really, please don’t pack your church full of people right now” viewpoint the orders to do so have become a point of friction that really flared up this past Easter Sunday. Trump wanted to declare the virus over and done with by then but cooler heads have prevailed so far on the national level. On more local levels, well, some pastors have been very defiant about continuing to hold in-house services and the results have been as you might have expected. Bishop Glenn was an early bird who last held a service on March 22nd before falling ill and dying this past weekend. Those who similarly packed into churches for Easter are more than likely now ticking time bombs. No zombie horde to throw oneself to, but the end result may, sadly, end up being the same.

Myself, I’m lucky enough to be working at home now both for this and my day job, but a co-worker died of Covid last week. He was 48.

Stay home, folks. Stay safe.