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| In Celtic mythology birds are messengers between this world and the next, aiding mortals on their spiritual and earthly journeys |
For days I've been wracking my brains for something remotely positive to say about where we find ourselves as a country. Despite all the premature rhetoric about a new normal and opportunities to do things differently, we seem to be plunging headlong and somewhat blindly back into the economic-growth-driven life we were used to. 'It'll all be over by Christmas,' proclaims the Prime Minister.
It seems we've arrived at a place where it's necessary to decide whether we believe the government or the scientists advising them. The government's top priority is getting the economy to work again; all else, including scientific and medical concerns, is subordinate. Scientists tell us that unless we modify our behaviour the pandemic will overwhelm us again (and possibly again and again) leading to many thousands more deaths. If you are healthy and have lost your income I can well understand the inclination to follow the government. If you or a family member is vulnerable because of your health, or if you have lost a loved one, then the scientific advice will be compelling. Of course, we all understand that. It really shouldn't be science versus politics but the government's approach is tending in that direction.
What we seem to have discovered during lockdown is that our economy is heavily dependent on selling products and services that are not essential. We have discovered desperately divided social structures that limit access by some sections of society to essential commodities such as food, a roof over your head, education and social care. We have discovered that those who lack ready access to these commodities are far more vulnerable to the virus and that large numbers of people whose work ensures the provision of essential supplies and health care for others come from this section of society and are very poorly paid indeed.
Perhaps one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves at the moment is this. In the light of what we have had to change over the past four months, what have we learned to do without and how can we capture that space permanently in ways that make it possible for us to give back into society? Less travel, less food, less choice, less security, less doing what we please, less waste? More time, more self sufficiency (as regards food), more focus, more living in the moment, more sharing, more setting aside our own interests to care for others? How can we purposefully redirect our lives? That may be the question uppermost for those of us who have not felt the pain of losing someone. For those of us who have suddenly lost a loved one Morgan Matson's line about 'a thousand moments that I had just taken for granted mostly because I assumed there would be a thousand more' may be the kind of sentiment that fills our days and nights.
We seem, as a society, to have glossed over the grief and the deaths of the past four months surprisingly hastily. For the individuals who have lost their lives and for their families, 2020 has taken a devastatingly unexpected and final turn. Yet I haven't been very conscious of hearing or seeing the recognition, let alone the compassion, that this tragedy might have led us to expect. When we think more civilians have died of COVID-19 since March 2020 than were killed in the six years of the Second World War, we might begin to ask ourselves what those 45,000 people might have said to us and what they might wish to see as their legacy. They mostly died frightened, struggling to breathe or sedated, and separated from their loved ones, their lives cut short with little time to prepare. Many were depending on practical and medical help; for some it materialised, for others it did not.
Our country has been very persistent in remembering the wartime dead. Perhaps it's too soon to make any judgements about how our COVID dead will be remembered but we need to begin to face the question. Since March many of us have had to think about putting advance care plans and final wishes into writing, talking to relatives and medics about what we would like to happen should we become terminally ill and die. It's not an easy subject to address, not always a comfortable conversation to have with family.
If we haven't already, we might begin to ask ourselves how we would wish our collective passing to be marked on the broader canvas of history. How should so many deaths impact society? One of the best memorials to the COVID dead might surely be a determined national effort to eradicate homelessness and destitution, hunger and extreme poverty. Another might be to reform the social care system and, more radically, to allow the insights of care to pervade our politics. ViaMedia.News has been publishing a series of blogposts entitled 'We Can't Go Back...' Alison Webster, Deputy Director of Social Responsibility in the Oxford Diocese writes,
'We need an economy that reflects a different reality. One that serves not just the ableist autonomy of the few, but the vulnerability and interdependence of the many. An economy based on good love. Good love invests time. Good love connects. Good love brings us out of ourselves. Good love recognises that everyone has needs, and everyone has something precious to give. We need to move towards this economy now. Covid 19 has taught us this. It has shown us the need to de-atomise ourselves, so that all of us get to participate in the world outside our windows, even if we cannot go outside.'
Moving from aspiration to action is a difficult journey. Like those who have died form COVID-19 we go about our everyday lives expecting that we have time to make adjustments. Their deaths show us how important it is to live in the minute and, if we have an idea about something we could do, to act on it today. It might seem small, it might seem that it won't make much difference and nobody will notice, but if it is done out of love to honour someone who has died, it will take root in our own lives and contribute to a wider effort to shape a new normal.
