Sorry I missed last night — I was wound up from that Louisiana pastor’s service. To make up for my lapse, I offer you the Scots granny that we all need:

Got this update from my wee granny? 93 and still going strong ❤️ pic.twitter.com/SEjCwLZ8Ww

— islaanne? (@islaanne1) March 31, 2020

Several of you have kindly asked how I’m doing with my relapse into Epstein-Barr virus (mononucleosis). It’s not as bad this time as before, but it’s still a thing. I feel generally puny all the time, but as before, every day between two and four p.m., I wilt. I have to go lie down, and I fall asleep for three or four hours. This is what happened last time, though I slept more deeply, and for five or six hours. If you don’t see comments approved for long stretches in the afternoons, now you know why.

In happier news, my son Matthew started an April Fool’s Day tradition a few years back. We would wake up on the morning of April 1 to find that he had planted images of Nicolas Cage in strange places around the house. That ended a couple of years ago, when he went off to college. This morning, it was a pleasure to see that his sister Nora, 13, had taken on that responsibility. There were 25 copies of the same image of Nic Cage around our house this morning, including in the fridge, as you see above, and in the microwave:

And in the dishwasher:

He was also on the inside of the toilet lid, and in many other sites of interest. I am blessed by the eccentricity of my children.

Now, to your dispatches.

From Columbus, Ohio:

Hello from the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. Week three of lockdown here, although I don’t remember if the first week was mandated. Guess I’ve lost track of time. As others have noted, Ohio’s response to this has been extremely aggressive and our governor has done a great job in my opinion. My wife and I are in our mid-thirties and have been trying to both work from home and pay attention to our two kids who are 13 and 8. It’s not been easy.

Both my wife and I got sick on March 11th before all the craziness really started here in the US. We had terrible fevers at first and were knocked on our butts for 4-5 days. I’m a former college athlete and Army Officer and in the best shape of my life but whatever we had hit me hard. My wife rebounded a lot quicker than I did, but I am asthmatic so when the cough and breathing issues set in I was extremely concerned. I feel as though I had all the symptoms of Covid-19 but my doctor would do absolutely nothing for me, even with the asthma. I am now finally starting to feel like normal again. The big issue in all of this is the lack of testing available. It’s insane that someone like me with all the symptoms and underlying respiratory condition couldn’t even get tested. I was basically told that unless I got to the point where I can’t breathe at all that I just need to stay at home and rest.

My wife and I are very fortunate to have jobs that allow us to work from home, but I am concerned about the long term. My wife works in the corporate HQ of a clothing company and I work in logistics. I am more worried about her job as with all the shopping malls closed the revenue flow has grinded to a halt. Also, her company’s target customer consists of all the young 20-30 somethings who are probably laid off right now so they are definitely not buying clothes. Other clothing companies in the region have already furloughed or given forced pay cuts to their employees. It is only a matter of time before her company is next.

2019 was a rough year for us as my wife and I had some issues we had to work through. We were very excited to start things fresh in 2020 but 2020 has obviously had its own plans so far. We are feeling the stress of having two working parents and my wife was getting the itch to stay at home with our kids. A lock-down and mandated work from home wasn’t how we planned on accomplishing that but it’s given us some extra family time that we appreciate.

We attend an amazing non-denominational church that has held online services the past 3 weekends. Our pastor has been very engaged on social media and we are doing a lot as a church for the greater community to help in this time of need. One of the local news stations asked to broadcast our church service on Sunday mornings because they recognized that people need some hope during this time. Our pastor has been very vocal about how he sees this as a tremendous opportunity for Christians to reach people right now and I think he’s exactly right.

Anyway, thank you for these diaries and all of your writing. Stay safe down there in the South.

From Dublin:

I didn’t really start taking the corona situation seriously until the Dublin St Patrick’s Day parade was called off. I’d assumed that the parade, a major tourist trap, was too big to cancel. Plus I’m 38, in decent health, have no living relatives over 70 and am not prone to hypochondria, so I wasn’t worried about the virus itself.

But cancelled the parade was. Then the pubs closed, then most of the shops, then the churches. I continued to commute every day to the ever-emptier office where I work in admin, and rather enjoyed the the new peace and quiet of the place. Finally, on Friday evening, they told us that everyone was staying home for at least the next two weeks. Irish people are now not allowed to travel more than two kilometres from their homes without good reason. My office is out of bounds.

My problem is that, while I’m not a germophobe, I am a bit of a technophobe. I disliked the sound of this working from home business from the start. Now, hooking your home PC up to the office system turns out to be even more of a nightmare than I’d imagined (despite my team leader‘s assurance that it was “really easy”). You have to download an app, enter a code, take a photograph of a barcode, get another code, enter that new code somewhere within 60 seconds otherwise the whole thing will time out, then create a new code … and so on. This stuff triggers the kind of feelings in me that southern Pentecostal pastors trigger in New York Times columnists.

I’ve spent the last two days cooped up in my apartment, waiting for IT to fix my various login issues and seething in anger. Anger at the house arrest I’ve been placed under. Anger at this Brave New Technocracy that makes such an idol of digitalisation that now we’re all expected to be whizzes at using apps. Anger at the media that bombard me, unasked, with constant notifications about “soaring” infection rates in this or that place. Anger at myself for having ended up like this. I said “my apartment” a moment ago, but in fact I can barely afford the rent and so I cannot allow my job situation to go belly-up. I feel a kind of impotent panic. Is the world around me going to get ever faster, ever more digital, while I scratch my head in frustration, trying furiously to keep up with the younger people before finally giving up in despair?

All of this gives me a lot of sympathy with the anti-lockdown brigade. Not that I’m some kind of coronavirus denialist or anything. (After all, the whole thing can hardly be a liberal plot when Iran is enforcing social distancing too.) But I agree heartily with people like Peter Hitchens and Nigel Farage over in England who are saying “By all means let’s wash our hands and respect personal space, but shutting down the entire country is just crazy.“ In my less rational moments, I feel a burning desire to flout the rules. I listened to a recent sermon by Pastor Tony Spell and I rejoiced in his passion, the prophetic eloquence of his King James-laced speech, the obvious enthusiasm of his congregation. I found myself exclaiming “Yes!” I’m not Pentecostal or even Protestant, but I swear, if I was in Baton Rouge during these dark days I would proudly go to that man’s church. Not, I fear, out of some deep desire to worship God in spirit and in truth (my morning prayers in front of my little icon shelf remain as hasty and distracted as ever) but out of a desire to stick it to our technocratic overlords. I imagine shaking my fist at them and shouting “You see this, you bastards? This is what I think of your virus and your apps and your headlines and your lockdowns. You can kill me if you want, but I’ll die in church with a Bible in my hand, not cowering on my sofa in my pyjamas!“

Such fantasies are foolishly intemperate, of course, and leave me feeling worse than before. But quite honestly, it’s hard to avoid them in my current situation. It’s hard to take your mind off things when you are imprisoned like this. I could do with a few drinks, but it’s Lent. Perhaps I should get a dog, but I live up on the third floor. Oh well. With a bit of luck, IT will get back to me soon and I can log in and get a bit of work done.

From Michigan:

Writing from a college town in SE Michigan. A friend’s co-worker (a bus driver) recently died of COVID. That’s awful close for comfort. In lighter news I’ve never seen my local park as consistently full of people, even with crummy Michigan weather. Local high-school teachers are making 3-D printed face shields for the hospital system and people are donating hand sown masks. Yard signs thanking healthcare workers have sprung up.

The university hospital system which has 1000 beds just released some projections. The worst scenario is a peak near 6000 in early May. The other scenario is a peak of 3000 in mid May. Major takeaway is that this will last till June. Other cities or states may have a timeline stretching well into Summer. Hotels, dorms, and athletic facilities are being prepared to house stable patients so perhaps our hospitals will manage.

This is in an affluent city with a large hospital system. Detroit is much more worrisome. A decade ago it was the largest US city to go bankrupt and driving through it one could be forgiven for thinking he was in a war zone. The city recently stopped shutting off water for households that can’t afford utilities. Basically poor people don’t have access to tap-water. Remember Flint, it’s not the only Michigan city with water problems. Gov. Whittmer (D) was elected in a backlash against the Republican administration’s lead tainted water scandal. Pres. Trump called her “Gov. half-Whittmer” and the two have been having an unpleasant spat the past week. I voted for Trump because I’ve seen how globalism hurt our industrial heartland and how crazy SJWs were. If I had to choose, Whittmer’s done a better job handling the crisis by far. This could be a chance for the Democrats to put forward competent governors in place of left wing cranks. Unfortunately Whittmer, Cuomo, and others generally sign off on the SJW agenda so that might not be much of a change.

From Tampa, Florida:

I’ve been meaning to write for some time from the point of view of someone who is not, at the moment, much affected. I have a pension and social security, so I’m not going to be broke and jobless, and Tampa has not been hit that hard yet. My son has insisted that we start ordering groceries, which is actually kind of cool once you get the hang of it. And I am supporting my neighborhood Thai restaurant with take-out orders because I consider the owner to be a friend.

So I sound like evidence for one of the wacko deniers, And, in fact, neither of the ER physicians I know seem to be working any harder at the moment. But here’s the point. Tampa’s numbers are going up everyday. It is going to get grim, very grim. And then the hospital parking lots will still be empty, because no visitors are allowed and no elective surgery is scheduled. And as everyone knows, empty parking lots mean that there is no shortage of protective gear and more than enough ventilators to go around. I hope, at 77, I don’t have to verify that conclusion personally.

From California:

1224am. I just finished reading your Pandemic Diaries 15. I don’t really feel like I have much to contribute to the blogosphere that’s new, but at least one perspective probably thinks it irrelevant. We’ve all been doing obeisance to a discarnate, virtual, video world because of a fleshy reality. Odd.

I’m a student pilot. I quit my full time job the Monday before California’s lockdown where I live with my wife and two, twin, tenth month old daughters. My wife is in her last year of medical school. Since medical students aren’t allowed contact with patients, and I only fly 2-3 hours a day as a student, we’ve had plenty of time together. We study. Bake. Read. Her Father Arseny: Priest and Prisoner. Me Elder Joseph the Hesychast by Elder Ephraim who just recently reposed. I’ve started praying to both elders for their help.

My wife is currently researching the need/marketability/desire for part-time residencies. Normally residents work 70 plus hour weeks for 3-7 years depending on the length and speciality of residency. Is it stupefying so many suffer from depression and end up killing themselves? Kyrie eleison. Residents need options to get good training as doctors who aren’t swayed by “good” reasons to commit suicide. Maybe then we would have more to attend to those in the hospital currently.

In other great news, I baked my first sourdough bread to my own perfect standards. I’m very proud. Good crust that sings to the ear when cut with a serrated knife. Light dough that compresses farther than I thought possibly with all its holes. Twinge of sourness that makes eating it plain alone sumptuous. I’ve sent pictures to my mom and brother in law. I will probably need to head to confession for my worldly attachment and lack of heeding St John of the Ladder this week.

Nothing like always attending to the pathology of the soul. Really makes me miss Eucharist in this time. I want it so much. I hope we can celebrate Pascha together. It’s a very faint hope.

This reader writes from Portland, Oregon, and did not submit this as a Pandemic Diary entry, but I think it fits:

A number of your recent blog posts have caused me to deeply reflect on the present moment. In that sense, this email is a response to the “Christians who make Christians Look bad” post, “Coronavirus and the hidden life,” and generally on the pandemic posts.

The response of many Evangelical leaders is deeply troubling, though, as you’ve rightly pointed out, also overblown by those with a reason to disparage Christians. I grew up in the Evangelical tradition, in an extremely secular, post-Christian city (Portland). We are, in a sense, “ahead” of much of the country in terms of secularization. The mega churches and the culture surrounding them are completely irrelevant here. I grew up in a large, not quite “mega” church, and it has completely died. My wife and I now attend a church which would probably still be classified as Evangelical, but follows a liturgical calendar, with resources for daily morning and evening prayer. It is a smaller congregation, deeply focused on discipleship, inner spirituality, and following Jesus in community.

Recently, we have been holding prayer meetings and gatherings with our community via Zoom. One aspect we discussed (as you did in a recent post) was this virus as a sort of “apocalypse,” not in the end of the world sense, but in the original meaning of the word as unveiling. And one thing that the virus has unveiled or will unveil is how much of the American ethos is built around an entitlement to comfort. When things are hard, or painful, we assume that something has gone terribly wrong and must be fixed.

That ties in to the discussion of theodicy in your hidden life post. The discussion of theodicy is quite timely, as I’ve been reflecting on this topic quite a bit lately. I used to struggle with how God could allow evil to happen. Long nights spent in anxious wrestling gave way to doubt and then a soft agnosticism. As I’ve come back to faith, I’ve found that the so called “problem of evil” is a problem because we demand that God reveal himself to us on our terms. If you trust God, you trust him even if you don’t always understand him. And that isn’t a cop out answer. A cursory reading of the Bible shows that God wants to work through created beings and our free will, rather than crush us into obedience. How that works in with natural evil is ultimately just a detail (for what it’s worth, I think J.R.R. Tolkien’s account of chaos entering the world in the Ainulindale is the best word picture I’ve seen). Virus or no virus, human hearts would still find a way to make each other suffer.

The point of all this rambling is that what I think the Church can offer the world in this time is serenity. Not empty platitudes, but a steadfastness in the face of apocalypse. The virus is unveiling the emptiness behind the assumptions in much of America that we are entitled to a comfortable life, growing stock market, bigger houses etc. Those Evangelical mega-church pastors have sadly also bought into this lie, defiant against anything that might change their routine (or more cynically, their profit). In this way, they are more modernists than Christians. This way of church will burn away, maybe in this pandemic, maybe later. But the followers of Jesus who walk with him through the evil, not hiding in comfort behind veils which will eventually be torn down, maybe we could stand out, and offer the world a better way.

The mega churches in Portland are either gone or irrelevant. The culture here washed away the weak foundations upon which they stood. What remains are those who truly want to walk with Jesus through the evils of life. I pray that, if any good is to come of this virus, it is that the assumptions of this modern culture are somewhat washed away, and America sees that comfort cannot shield society from pain forever. At that point, maybe those Christians who have walked with Jesus through evil rather than hidden behind triumphalist bellowing will be far more relevant to the culture than they are now.

To that end, I think what Christians need to do is to do what our church has done, what your parish is doing, and what many others seem to be doing. Use this time to double down in prayer, in scripture, in building community, in comforting the sick and providing for the unemployed, the uninsured, and the grieving. When we come out of it, if we are the only ones whose convictions and routines have been strengthened, rather than weakened, that will be a powerful sign to the world.

Anyways, I’m sorry for the long and rambling nature of the post. I’ve been trying to work from home and type this out at the same time, I doubt my thoughts are even coherent. May you stay safe and healthy.

Keep them coming, readers. I’m at rod — at — amconmag — dot — com. Be sure to put PANDEMIC DIARIES in the subject line, and don’t forget to say from where you are writing (city, and/or state, or region, or country, etc).