A generation goes, a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. Ecclesiastes 1:4 The sun rises against its will would choose the comfortable quilt of darkness over ineluctable morning. The earth turns. Obvious things, mentioned for the obviousness of things, the tiresome rote of days. Yet beneath, something different. Something new. Swelling, pulsing, throbbing like unsatisfied longing, hangover from a future held politely to the lips but not drunk. Something is passing away— disease, an order, a way of life, a dream— We will all survive this, we are told. Some, not all. José Ameal survived the Spanish Flu. Nineteen eighteen. He was four. From his bed he peeked through drawn curtains looked outside to watch the souls passing by— “so many dead”— on the streets of Luarca in north Spain. Did he wonder if his turn would come? He lived to be imprisoned by Franco, bury his wife in ’fifty-one, marry another and live fifty more good … [Read more...]

Raise the yellow flag that marks disease. This lonely ship will not soon come to rest in port of comforting communion, or cease to sail. We berth on isolation’s breast and pray for peace, though at a frightening cost we’d have been wiser not to pay. The rest you know. Too many years like waves have tossed us to and fro to break now with the lie: “ ’Tis only ‘til we’re finally across this yawning chasm, this darkening divide that makes us a society of strangers, closeted ‘til viruses subside….” And then? Shall we then brave the dangers that drift malevolent, like random microbes or evil humors, insults, sudden angers, in the daily current? ‘Twill not be so. This boat’s no recent shelter. Here’s the tragedy: we booked our passage on it long ago. Social distance is the commended remedy for illnesses that take their mortal toll. But social distance is also the malady that keeps the body well but kills the soul. PAUL HOOKER is an associate dean at Austin … [Read more...]