Sunday Afternoon Tea - Staying calm when the world is going nuts

Today's Sunday Afternoon Tea post will be a little different as I want it to be a response to the recent Saturday Living the Pantry Lifestyle posts.

I enjoy doing research on subjects of interest and preparing for all emergency situations has been a subject near to me since I was a very young wife in the 1970s.  Everyone thought the world was falling apart at that time and indeed there was good reason with gasoline shortages causing long lines at the gas station and due the world situation, the economy had tanked and interest rates were over 20%. 

The environmental movement was warning that humanity would soon die off and there was still a good chance of being nuked by Russia.  No wonder a lot of Christians thought Jesus had to return quickly for if one believed everything they heard, mankind would not exist past the 1980s.

We can laugh now that the 1970s are far in the rear view mirror of history but we were not amused at the time.  Since then, there have been numerous end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it warnings but we are still here. 

Granted, the world really is more dangerous than it ever has been.  However, the more we know about a subject, the easier it is to prepare for it as much as possible.  We can find out the most probable outcome as well as the worst case scenarios.

I have been sharing links to websites that I trust but I am also still reading what those who tend to be more outlandish are saying.  For I have found in the past that the Truth usually is somewhere around the middle of "no problem at all" and "the end of the world is tomorrow".

Okay, here is what we know about the coronavirus.  You most likely have had a coronavirus before, perhaps many times.  For the common cold can be a coronavirus.  I've long said there is nothing common about the common cold!  That is one side of the virus spectrum.  SARS and MERS are also part of the coronavirus spectrum on the most dangerous side.

There is all kinds of speculation as to where this virus came from in the first place.  Many experts say it started where animals are butchered in the city where it first broke out, others say it has to be a weaponized form of the common cold virus, still others believe it may have been a vaccine experiment gone wrong.  What the various authors believe is definitely tied to their worldview and there is disagreement even among the experts.

This "new" coronavirus is definitely contagious and governments are doing what they can to contain it with good reason for people do get very sick.  However, unless this new virus mutates, medical experts are still telling us that the flu is still far more dangerous to most people. 

Almost all of the deaths from the new virus have been among the elderly and those with immune deficiencies.  The last statistic I saw for this flu season was 32 million cases of the flu, 310,000 hospitalizations, and 18,000 flu deaths.  The death rate from the current coronavirus is still less than 2% of those who get it. 

It kind of puts it all in perspective if you are living outside of Asia and some parts of Europe.  Can the virus mutate, certainly it can.  However, so far it doesn't show signs of mutating from whatever caused it in the first place.

It is wise to do everything we can to prevent getting the virus and spreading it, especially if you or the loved ones you live with are elderly and/or have immune deficiencies.  If we prepare all we can, then we can rest knowing we have done something to prepare for a quarantine.

Having said that... we also need to remember that the news media thrives on scaring us half to death.  Which I find annoying because, like the boy who called wolf, there most likely will be a real danger someday that we need to prepare for and who will we trust?

During our last semester of being in a home school co-op, I taught a class to the older kids that combined two loves... literature and worldview.  We read through a Dickens' novel first to understand how his writing opened the eyes of people to the conditions of the British Empire, especially for the poor. 

Then I had them read various magazine articles I had photocopied (hmmm... is that illegal?) that were all about the same story but each had a different perspective.  It was an eye opener for them to read the various magazine articles and how each writer wrote about the same subject but from an entirely different perspective.  One would be hard pressed to believe they were writing about the same thing.

Everything we studied that semester was to show the young people that everyone brings with them a worldview, which is the lens by which each of us views the world around us.  Sometimes it takes some study to find the Truth among the various options.  We learned from this experiment that being widely read on various subjects is a good thing.

However, the one place we always find the Truth is in the Bible (and even then we disagree on how to interpret it... sheesh, it is a good thing God knows this all turns out for our good and His glory!).

We need to prepare for the worst but also realize this most likely is not it.  However, it would make a good dress rehearsal should there be a time we do have a dangerous epidemic where we live, or terrible weather, or another terrorist attack, or other kinds of social unrest.

Peace is a Person and what better time to bring that peace to those around you than when the world is losing its' collective mind.  At least it seems that way if one only reads the headlines. 

Limit unnecessary travel if you are concerned.  Be prepared to stay inside for a few weeks if necessary.  Pray, read the Word, and wash your hands.