My mother had a small wooden statue of the three monkeys Hear No Evil, See No Evil, and Speak No Evil. These monkeys were meant to tell us how we should live our lives. Following their sage advice, the world would be a better place. Let's see how this piece of advice applies to current events.
Hear no evil. I like to keep up on current events. I wake up in the morning and I check the news feed on my computer. I look at my feed on Facebook. The news though these past few weeks has been heavy. I try to hear the headlines. I do tune in to the daily speech from the Provincial Medical Officer. I find though I just can't stomach COVID news 24/7. I am not being an ostrich with my head in the sand. However, I can only listen to the same questions asked by reporters so many times. They are constantly questioning governmental officials: you have over stretched your authority, you haven't done enough, why did you decide to take this measure today- what changed since yesterday? Give me a good 15 minute daily briefing and let me turn off. I need my sanity.
See no evil: I have been amazed at the total disregard people have for the seriousness of the situation that we face. Thousands have died. Hundreds of thousands are sick. ICU beds and ventilators are full. Yet there are those people who don't care. They go out to crowded parks despite being told to isolate. They visit vulnerable relatives even though they have runny noses and are coughing. They continue to party on the beach, and say, "If I get COVID, I get COVID. The fact is this virus is new. Although the vast majority of us have not been infected, some have. Although many will have mild symptoms, thousands will die. We need to look out and be aware; we cannot pretend that COVID is not there.
Speak no evil: In the 80's, HIV/AIDS was considered to be a gay disease. It wasn't of course. AIDS hit the gay community first, but many others had to die before people understood that the HIV Virus was not sent by a wrathful God to punish one set of peoples. Many people like to point fingers in crisis times. They like to point fingers and blame. Some people are using this crisis to make money: scam emails are preying on people's fears, televangelists are selling "cures" as fundraisers, some politicians are using COVID to push their political agendas (the Texas Lieutenant Governor, an avid anti health care proponent, actually said that the old people would gladly die quickly of COVID rather than be a drain on the economy). President Trump has been quick to jump on the snake oil salesman bandwagon when he promoted an anti-malarial drug as a cure which has led to the deaths of people in Arizona and Nigeria who believed his words. Speaking no evil means telling what we know, not spreading false cures, not blaming an impersonal virus on a people who were caught even more unawares by this virus then we were (we had 6 weeks notice that COVID was here; Wuhan had no such notice). When times are hard, we need to speak of love, encouragement, and true hope. We are not called to spread false home, hatred, and lies. Blessings.
