“This Saturday” would now refer to last Saturday,
March 14th, and Bridge Street was empty. Today on the news we heard
that the Governor of Michigan closed restaurants and bars as of 3:00
p.m. to all indoor seating. Only pick-up and drive thru options are
now available. Apparently St. Patrick’s Day is to bars and pubs, as
Christmas is to retailers in general. One owner lamented the potential
consequences in a news segment. So, why would I be wishing you a
Happy St. Patrick’s Day? What is there to be happy about? Well,
for one thing, we can be happy we live in the 21st century, and not
in the days of the man we refer to as St. Patrick. Last year my email
contained a great deal of information about St. Patrick. If you would
like to know when he was around, and more about him, here is the direct
link:
https://wsharing.com/WS-NLE-190315-P.htm.
In Patrick’s day, a virus like this might be wiping
out whole communities, since people had no clue what a “virus” was,
or how it spread.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease
“In Antiquity, in his account of the plague of Athens,
the Greek historian Thucydides (c. 460 – c. 400 BC) was the first person
to write that diseases could spread from an infected person to others
. . . . Basic forms of germ theory were proposed in the late Middle
Ages by physicians . . . . The more formal experiments on the relationship
between germ and disease were conducted by Louis Pasteur between the
year 1860 and 1864 . . . . Viruses were discovered in the 1890s.”
Even though the idea that a disease could be passed
from one person to another had been bantered around for thousands of
years, it has only been a hundred and fifty years since germs were being
recognized as causers of disease. And, less than one hundred and fifty
years since we knew anything about viruses. Even as a person who focuses
on natural alternatives, I am happy to have a medical science available
this St. Patrick’s Day with the knowledge of what is going on, and to
have people around with the God given gifts to understand, and the abilities
to come up with ways to combat such a disease. A little research on
the Internet revealed this is not the first virus in this category (coronavirus)
we have had to deal with.
Isaiah 41:10 New International Version (NIV)
10 So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
I can also be happy for the faithful men and women
throughout history, some of whom we now refer to as saints, who lived
their daily lives facing all sorts of dangers and challenges with the
strength of their beliefs. When so much seems to be failing, it is good
to be reminded that God is sovereign over all things created, both seen
and unseen, including viruses.
_______
A neighbor child (with her mother along behind her)
came to our door earlier this evening with a hand drawn, and cut out,
shamrock she handed me. She was asking neighbors to display them in
their windows for St. Patrick’s Day. I am not entirely sure, but apparently
this involves some sort of St. Patrick’s Day activity for the neighborhood
children. I was happy to participate. There are already many uplifting
stories of how people find ways to come together in this unusual challenge
of needing to stay apart. Many more will follow in the days ahead. NBC
played a one minute video montage narrated by Harry Smith at the end
of the Saturday evening news. I liked it. It took a while to find it,
but here is a [copy & paste] direct link if you missed it.
Coming Together by Harry Smith
https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/how-americans-can-come-together-to-fight-coronavirus-by-staying-apart-80642629788
_______
And finally, on this St. Patrick’s Day, I would like
to include a prayer shared by Pastor Chuck at Immanuel Lutheran Church
here in Grand Ledge. He said he ran across it on Facebook. I am not
on Facebook, so he graciously offered to email it to me.
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