In these trying times, let’s start with a prayer:
“Father, you can heal us in a heartbeat. We pray for Your miraculous healing today – from depression, life-long disease, sudden failures, addictions and massive handicaps. We pray for miraculous healing because we know You are as capable of fixing our physicalities as You are to hold the oceans in place as the Earth spins around.
Through Your Son’s death on the cross, we have the opportunity to be healed spiritually. By believing in Jesus we are connected straight to You in prayer and presence.
Bless our hearts to believe in You beyond our heart’s capacity. Strengthen our faith where it is weak and strengthen our resolve to linger in Your presence a little longer each day.Take our pain away, according to Your will, in Your time. We’re not promised a painless life on this Earth, but You do want us to live a happy one.
Send Your Spirit to help us see past our circumstances and onto Your calling on our lives. Sickness and injury can’t stop God-placed dreams. Fill our hearts with hope as we wait on You to move in our lives and flow out from our hearts. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, in his commentary published in various media outlets, stated: “Only by coming together will the world be able to face down the Covid-19 pandemic and its shattering consequences. At an emergency virtual meeting last Thursday, G20 leaders (heads of the world’s 20 largest economies) took steps in the right direction. But we are still far away from having a coordinated, articulated global response that meets the unprecedented magnitude of what we are facing.”
Guterres also presented a three-point call to action based on science, solidarity, and smart policies that includes the suppression of transmission of the coronavirus, which he says requires aggressive and early testing and contact tracing, complemented by quarantines, treatment, and measures to keep first responders safe, combined with measures to restrict movement and contact. Such steps, despite the disruptions they cause, must be sustained until therapies and a vaccine emerge, he added.
Well, until a vaccine emerges which we pray is very soon, this near-sighted Ibaloy writer reminds all those who are supposed to stay home to do so, practice good hygiene, social distancing, and be positive. May God protect us all especially our frontline workers.
“It saddens me that amidst the health crisis that we are confronted with, some people still have the temerity to talk politics.These people had dared to remind me either subtly or openly of my supposed political obligations to them: ‘Mayor, huwag mo kaming kakalimutan alalahanin mo sinuportahan ka namin. Baka magtampo kami sa iyo, makalimutan ka namin.’ It is disheartening and downright infuriating to hear these words uttered amid a raging war against an unseen yet insidious enemy.
For the past weeks, we have been exerting our utmost efforts to lay down all possible systems to protect our constituency from the contagion. This we did with nary a thought to please or return favor to anybody. I made a commitment. I will always do what is right for the people of Baguio. We were never selective in everything that we do. All I wanted is to prevent the further transmission of the virus while ensuring the steady provision of the basic needs of the community. After all, this virus does not choose its victims. Political advancement is the farthest thing in our mind right now. We have a virus to conquer and a city to protect. So we appeal to our people: set aside politics and for once do as humans do – care and overcome.” (Mayor Benjamin Magalong)
Here’s “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson: “’Hope’ is the thing with feathers—/ That perches in the soul—/ And sings the tune without the words—/ And never stops—at all—/ And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—/ And sore must be the storm—/ That could abash the little Bird/ That kept so many warm—/
I’ve heard it in the chillest land—/ And on the strangest Sea—/ Yet, never, in Extremity,/ It asked a crumb—of Me.”
We’re on air Wednesdays, 8 a.m., over K-Lite 96.7 FM, with Fiona Quinn and every last Tuesday of the month at 3p.m. for “City Hall Hour” over SkyCable, DZEQ Radyo Pilipinas, and Big FM.
May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ continue to bless and keep us all safe.
