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By Clark Bailey
The Loyalist

“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
The Shawshank Redemption

One day COVID-19 is going to end. I guess. I hope. I pray. I expect it to anyway. One day. I expect that we will look back months from now, or however long or hopefully short that is. I believe we will look back and reflect on all of this. We will scroll down our social media timeline. Pour through newspaper articles. Think about the days we’ve endured through that time till then.

Perhaps we will look back and laugh at all this. Not at the pain, the death the toll it has had on us, the division it has wrought, or at all the suffering, no, perhaps we will choose to laugh as to not to cry. Perhaps we can push a crooked smile through the prism of suffering.  I hope we as humans, as strong resilient beings can. I hope so.

When that time comes and we are looking back, what will we see? Will we see people who have come together? Will we see that we did what we had to do for the common good and to fight this virus? Will we see that care was taken in all our measures to ensure safety and health, that we ensured that our ways of life, traditions, and essential freedoms were protected as best can be in such a situation?

I hope and pray we can answer both of those questions with a resounding yes. I pray so.

Looking back, I do believe there are some lessons we can take away from this whole crisis and be better prepared, when and if, we have to deal with this again.

1. Be prepared for emergencies. I understand this is hard for some. I understand that it is harder depending upon income levels. I do feel it is doable with a little sacrifice though. Keep emergency supplies; candles, batteries, food, first aid kit, flashlights, etc…I also, recommend that you acquire a firearm, ammunition, and learn how to defend yourself and your family.
2. Understand and respect sacrifice. Sacrifice isn’t pleasant and we modern folk aren’t very fond of it. We are understanding in this pandemic that it is necessary, however.
3. Respect, understanding, and prayer for those leading us. We can hardly fathom the stress, fatigue, and sheer exhaustion those in leadership and on the front lines are feeling right now. We should try to be more understanding of that and be more prayerful for people in those roles. Be especially more prayerful for those we do not like and or agree with. This is not an encouragement to be bootlickers but to be good citizens and above that, good Christians.
4. Respect and understanding of the common folk. Those in leadership, from the President to governors, to mayors, and county leaders. We understand that there is stress upon all of those people that we are not familiar with do to the nature of the job. We understand and appreciate that, and we should be more understanding and perhaps less critical. That being said, the same goes for those in leadership. Leaders shouldn’t take every instance of disagreement or criticism to be a personal indictment of them. They should also strive to be as balanced as possible in their measures to protect and their measures to ensure our rights. I don’t presume this is easy, as we are humans and therefore fallible creatures. I do expect those in leadership as well as the everyday citizens ( myself included) to try and do better at that.
5. Borders. When, if this doesn’t teach us, are we going to take our borders seriously? When are we going to be more proactive and careful about who gets to come into our country and where people travel? The time has long since passed where this political football keeps getting passed around. The time has long since passed where leftist and muh libertarians get to spout that we should have completely free and open travel without oversight or control. Long since passed.
6. We must manufacture goods in America again. This has also been a political football for some time. Global elitists have long espoused and have had too much support from both parties that we should manufacture goods cheaply in third world countries. This has put the United States at risk. It can’t be any more clear as the fact we are importing PPE ( personal protective equipment) from China, the very same country that sent the virus out to the world. It is a national security issue for this country to not produce the necessary goods here. It is also an economic security issue.

At one time it was just common sense to know we needed to make stuff in this country. It provided many people with careers, retirements, and helped them raise families. It also meant we weren’t held hostage to a communist country that seeks world domination when we were in a worldwide pandemic. I hope that we can return to that kind of common sense and to manufacturing in this country.

I could probably go on but I’ll stop for now. I just want to say that let’s try to pray for each other more and love each other more as we get through this crisis. The sun will come out someday soon and we will be looking back on this. I hope that when we do that we have come through as better people.