Wow! Who would have thought we would be facing spring 2020 with words like coronavirus and social distancing now a daily part of our vocabulary. And, children being homeschooled, older Americans basically in lock down mode and toilet paper a premium product. Life has a way of surprising even those of us who thought we had seen it all. Right? 

Yes, it is scary times and different from other crises we have lived through. But, all crises’ have their similarities so we can draw from past experiences as we navigate this new one. 

1. From our cold war days, we learned to put our heads down and cover them with our hands. I’m not sure if that would have protected us from a nuclear bomb, but it did teach us to hunker down in times of trouble. This isn’t the time to run out and take advantage of the streets being empty, but it also isn’t time for us to panic. It’s time for us to hunker down in our homes and make the best of a difficult situation. Find your space, hunker down, cover your head and sit it out. This is coming from someone who has a bad case of FOMO (fear of missing out) at all times, but I have to live with the fact that I am missing things right now and hopefully one of those things is coronavirus. 
2. From our measles, mumps, and chicken pox days, we learned to entertain ourselves. Even our siblings were afraid to hang out with us, especially with those awful chicken pox, so we learned to entertain ourselves with pencil and paper and a few crayons. Life is looking very differently these days, but we have so many more resources at our fingertips to keep us, not just entertained, but learning and growing. If you have not figured out podcasts or Pinterest or a thousand other things online, now’s the time to do it. It’s an amazing time to be quarantined and I’m not saying that in a flippant way, it is true. We live in a time when we can facetime our grands!! Who ever thought that would be possible when we were kids! Wow!
3. From our Vietnam and Gulf War days, we learned to work together as a country for a cause that is bigger than each of us individually and, one we may not totally agree with or understand. We may not all agree with the restrictions imposed on us at this time, but we can all agree that we need to work together if the problem is to be solved. If we ignore what is being asked of us to do, we are saying we don’t want to compromise and compromise is the key to overcoming any crisis. 
4. From natural disasters like Katrina and tornados and ice storms, we’ve learned to help out our neighbors. I’ve already witness precious examples of teachers volunteering to facetime and help students, not their own and doctors and nurses coming out of retirement and church members volunteering to get groceries for their older citizens. Wow! It is true that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. It’s not what we want, but it is what will make us better people, if we choose to let it. 
5. From other tragic events like death, disease, divorce, and more, we’ve learned that the sun will come up tomorrow. While we’re going through the crisis or tragedy, it’s not fun or easy or anything we want it to be, but it does pass and we do move on and life does go on. All those clichés we say really do come true. My family, your family, everyone’s family has lived through all of these to some degree and we’re still here to fight another day. 

So, that’s it! I’ve heard words like crazy, weird, unreal, and bizarre applied to our coronavirus crisis of 2020, and all of those are true, it’s strange times for sure, but I can’t wait to see all the “good” things that come from this time when we were forced to refocus. All disruptions cause us to refocus and that isn’t all bad. It’s been said that many never change until forced, so let’s change something. Let’s let this disruption cause us to be better people.