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The Year Will Not End

Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.  (Ecc 5, ESV) I was mute and silent; I held my peace to no avail, and my distress grew worse. My heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue: (Ps. 39, ESV) Surely oppression drives the wise into madness,and a bribe corrupts the heart. Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools. (Ecc 7, ESV) What I wrote back in March has now seen the maturation of those patterns.  New experience and information has been acquired.  More than ever COVID19 resembles that class of infection we are well acquainted with, and which we call the Flu.  And more than ever we react to it as though it were small pox. Outrage follows outrage.  The Lie is the way of the

New Year, New World

My motivation to speak had diminished to near-zero, though I believe a more accurate description might rather say that the number of things needing to be said had gone.  If I had something to say I'd have said it, because it helps to have a "thing" in mind when describing it in writing. Well, I must have something now, and it has come through the last 3 weeks of sudden upheaval caused by the reaction to COVID-19, which has reached into my most personal space, my religion.  On March 10th I was content to consider the major reporting outlets as doing what they do best, stoking a wave of panic, and then riding it to the thrill of self-importance.  I could escape that panic because this disease is not a guaranteed death sentence, and seems to resemble the Flu, which we all hate, but put up with year after year (data so far have not killed this hypothesis).  I was content, I say, until the Archbishops modified liturgical behaviors, and then canceled shared meals, and then ca