Letter to the Editor
Editor,
In the New Age belief, there is a positive purpose in everything, even disaster. The plague that wiped out so many in Europe forced the rich to pay the poor for their work, because there were so few left to work. Fire renews forest growth. Flood spreads nutrients in the soil. Now we have a tiny virus that has brought the whole world to a halt. Maybe that is the positive.
Maybe the world was spinning too fast to survive, and we needed to stop to think about what we were doing to ourselves. We had skies filled with smog where now there are birds flying high. The pollution in the canals of Venus has cleared enough for the porpoises to return. Parents who were never home are getting reacquainted with their kids. Things we took for granted, like education, free movement, and coffee with friends have become important. Neighbours are even calling neighbours to see if they need help. We recognize the importance of EMS workers, nurses, doctors, grocery clerks, teachers, and truckers as never before. Soldiers are being brought home instead of sent into battle.
It has even forced us to look at the dark side of ourselves. We have found greed, selfishness, and callousness we denied we had. We need to see the bad in order to remove it.
Please ask your readers to consider both sides of this experience to see what the lessons are that it is trying to teach us. If we each create a gratitude list for this tyrannical virus, maybe it will decide we have learned the lessons and go away. If we all look more closely at the positives and correct the negatives we have indulged in, it will allow us to go back to hugging loved ones, and stop destroying our world.
Sincerely,
Roberta Docherty, Meaford
