Former Clinton aid and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel famously stated that, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.”  This is how you can apply that logic to the current situation concerning the Corona virus scare.

Remember, regardless of who holds what office at whatever level in the world of politics, the government screws up almost everything it tries or touches.  Because this strain of virus is new, no one really knows how this will unfold.  Because politicians are loath to admit they don’t know everything, they will tell us almost anything to convince us that they are leading effectively and in control.  They do this under the rationale that they are simply avoiding panic and managing an otherwise unmanageable situation.  What is really happening is that these people never want to seem as vulnerable or as unsure as they need us to stay, a requirement, in order for us to be led.  The minute a politician loses his seeming superior knowledge, his power is gone and with it his influence.  This situation is to be avoided at all costs, including doing or saying anything necessary to remain in power and control.  We need to remember that in order to keep in perspective what we are being told, by whom, and then determining for ourselves what really is the truth.

Remember a few short months ago, many in our country were basically arguing for open borders?  When we see the world through the prism of a global pandemic, all of a sudden borders are really important.  West Virginia stands out on the map when it is the only state in the union free of the virus.  Quite naturally, I’m sure West Virginians take great comfort in that fact.  Those of us who live here in Broome County wait nervously to hear of the first case here locally.  This demonstrates just how territorial people actually are.  Politicians are busy drawing hypothetical lines around the City of New Rochelle, NY.  Why?  Because the Governor has declared this region a “containment zone” after a large number of people came down with the virus.  Interesting how one situation can be traded for another, (virus versus borders), and quickly, the arguments go completely away.

Borders are to the adult population what rules are to children, they comfort us to know where the boundaries are.  We quantify and qualify ourselves by border identification; superior if we live there, less so if we don’t.

Today is National Prayer Day.  Our greatest hope and our most earnest source of comfort are to be found not from government or the media, but in prayer, our faith, and in our individual relationships with Jesus Christ.

In comforting a terrified nation in 1933, President Roosevelt took to the radio and told the millions of United State citizens listening that, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  He was right eighty-seven years ago, and he is right again today.  This is what the Bible tells us:   “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”