Let’s start with a prayer of hope and victory: “Thank you Lord that You are victorious over every trouble and obstacle. Thank you that You have overcome sin, and death, and any evil that we may face today. And because of You, we too are overcomers. We too can have victory, and we can walk strong in your peace.”
It was the Chinese philosopher and mystic Lao Tzu who said, “A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” Far from being a philosopher and more of a miron, this near-sighted Ibaloy writer interprets that “single step” as the basic or first action needed to be done in the realization of a goal. It’s a stretch, I know.
Anyway, the single step or basic action needed to protect us from getting infected by the Covid-19 according to health experts is in strictly adhering to minimum health protocols like frequent hand washing, physical distancing, and wearing of face masks and face shields in public.
If we can’t even follow this first or basic step, then hopes of containing the spread of the deadly virus would be a losing battle. Just saying. Look at U.S. President Donald Trump, the most powerful man in the world (next to Xi and Putin), who got infected due to his displaced machismo of not wearing a face mask in public. He should take the virus more seriously from now on since thousands of his countrymen have already died of the disease.
Let us heed Mayor Benjie Magalong’s appeal for us to inculcate the virtue of “disiplina muna” by taking that single step of following health protocols so we can hopefully come out of this pandemic alive and kicking.
Here’s “A Little Girl Lost” by William Blake: “Children of the future age,/ Reading this indignant page,/ Know that in a former time/ Love, sweet love, was thought a crime./ In the age of gold,/ Free from winter’s cold,/ Youth and maiden bright,/ To the holy light,/ Naked in the sunny beams delight./
Once a youthful pair,/ Filled with softest care,/ Met in garden bright/ Where the holy light/ Had just removed the curtains of the night.”
May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ continue to bless and keep us all safe.
