Good morning to you…
I just ran into Genevieve on the street, when I went out to feed the parking meter. She used to be one of the contributors to this page — she’s now a case worker for an organization called Family of Woodstock, a social services provider.
We chatted a little and then she said, “I’m really upset that the World Health Organization has raised the level of alert to Five,” on a scale of six. “Six is supposed to be the collapse of the infrastructure. It’s a world pandemic where there aren’t even police because they’re either sick or home taking care of someone who is. And here we are at a Five and everything is perfectly normal.”
It did seem to be fine, the Sun was shining and I had every expectation that within a few minutes I would have had a ticket.
This is kind of what I’ve been getting at.
Looking at this situation from what might be called a spiritual perspective, that is to say, some way other than the ordinary worldly Tamiflu perspective, informed by something other than fear, we face a potentially useful question.
Those who have done A Course in Miracles undoubtedly remember the exercise toward the beginning of the workbook where you run through this litany of disasters and in the interest of training yourself to see the deeper reality beyond them, say things to yourself like:
God did not create that airplane crash, therefore it’s not real.
God did not create that car accident, therefore it is not real.
God did not create that influenza virus, therefore it’s not real.
It occurred to me this morning waking up that this is basically what I’m doing when I either suggest that this flu pandemic is a gross exaggeration, make fun of it or in some way question the veracity of what we are being told. I’m not doing it as a ‘spiritual’ exercise but there is undoubtedly something metaphysical about a certain kind of joking around. It is a form of denial. One of the central teachings of A Course in Miracles is determining what is real and what is not, and denying what is not real, in favor of leaving space and creating energy for what is real. What is real is the healing and correction that can come if we leave space for it; and it is more difficult if we get caught up in the ‘reality’ of the problem.