As we continue to reevaluate our lives, our values under deep assessment, it’s tempting to yield to “end of the world” thoughts. Not only is the world shut down but so is life as we’ve known it. Many of us feel lost without the former parameters of social, physical, emotional, and spiritual markers that gave our lives context and meaning. Then we look outward via the internet and see Yemen about to implode, South Sudan and East Africa besieged by billions of crop destroying locusts, multilateral aid agencies warning that huge famine is closing in, and reports that the world economy may never achieve its former strength, and we wonder… are we nearing the “End”?

I think we would do ourselves a favour in this bleak hour to remember that even though calamity on a worldwide scale is new to us it’s not new to history. Just last century our world reeled from not one but two World Wars, countless regional conflicts, and yes, a pandemic-the Spanish Flu. We took the blows, suffered for a while, then got back onto our feet.

We will do so again.

In other words there is hope. And faith. Soldier on!