The Tricky Prankster by Sue Wright
Granted, at this point, pretending the Coronavirus pandemic is nothing more than an April Fool’s joke being played on the world by a nightmare prankster out of control is unrealistic. For one thing, the cruel mite of a culprit has been at it for months and threatens its grief-making for weeks to come.
Maybe, just maybe, if Covid-19’s spikey circles of leg-pulling had been but a one day’s folly—just this Wednesday—we might be willing to endure the inconvenience of the micro-menace and its devilment, respond with a cough, a grimace, and our usual promise for revenge. You know, find a payback for the joker worthy of the last laugh.
Alas, what you and I are in the midst of suffering—what our country is suffering—is no laughing matter. That doesn’t mean, however, there’s “no room” in our “shelter-ins” for giving up our smiles and determination in the face of this affront to our regular daily activities or failing to demonstrate a corporate cleverness equal to the wily creep. I’ve been amazed at folks’ ability to out-distance the pain of social distancing and their resourcefulness conjuring new routines in resistance to the evolving trickster’s challenge to their normal lifestyles—to what home and school have always looked like; to what church has been.
Speaking of church, we at Second, like other churches around the globe, have by necessity, been required to reformulate our prescription for dispensing God’s love to one another during this medical emergency. “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,” the miracle drug of kindness and care is now being brought to our membership in a variety of altered forms, changed from syrup to capsule—from pills to shots.
Whichever, we’ve found our church’s reach can be just as healing and “together” as the community it was only a month ago. That’s whether Sunday services are being received on-line, in small group chats via Zoom, checking on each other by telephone, texts, or email, delivering food to people who can’t get to the store, publishing daily blogs to stay connected, or by using other ingenious individual ventures of staying linked to church friends and acquaintances. For certain, all of us are going by the seat of our pants—okay, the hem of our pj’s--as we offer company and comfort to those in our congregation.
Jesus commanded us to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” What a perfect time in history to practice what our Savior preached. Except, perhaps, for this one date on the calendar every year when even the Golden Rule was made to be broken. Right? Hee! Hee! Hee!
“Come quick, Hon! Bootsy’s chewing up the last roll of toilet paper!”
“Oh, no!”
“April Fools!”