Moral lessons from coronavirus outbreak

Tayebwa Thomas

What you need to know:

  • Mindset. As we face coronavirus, prayer may not cure the virus, but it changes us and expunges inner impurities. It floods our hearts with divine love, and we start sharing the little we have with the hungry.
  • During this lockdown, it gives us hope without which we cannot cope. As Pope Francis rhetorically asked in his recent Urbiet Orbi, “How many are praying, offering and interceding for the good of all? Prayer and quiet service: these are our victorious weapons.”

It has been an earth-shattering few weeks since the coronavirus pandemic struck the world. The globe that has been a prisoner of a frenzied configuration since the industrial revolution and more so after capitalism became the dominant ideology is now literally transfixed. There is already staggering suffering, a lot of death and colossal economic devastation because of this pandemic.

What a shakeup it has been!
The first and perhaps most important lesson is that the things we prize and toil for most in this world are not necessarily the most important. Most of us took mortgages to build mansions but we are complaining of being locked up in them. We cannot even afford to sit, relax and enjoy the ambiance created by the luxurious decorations we put in them.

We instead crave for what we usually call dirty streets, potholed roads to mention but a few. Even the ostensible high-end citizens can no longer fly their loved ones abroad for specialised treatment. Lesson: It is time to build relations, our own country and reliable institutions.

Secondly, we have ignored God, frantically clamouring for possessions and positions at the expense of our souls and of love in its quintessence. Although this country is highly religious, many still dabble in the occult. It is time to stop fraternising with Satan and turn all our affections to God. We have forgotten Jesus’ exhortation that what will it benefit us to gain the whole world but lose our souls?

The business and busyness of this world has consumed our time to parent our children properly and love our spouses affectionately. As a result, we are raising a love-starved generation with emotional and psychological disequilibrium and running love starved marriages.

Thus God has locked us in saying no more ‘long-distance love’. We are no longer slaves to time-driven schedules and routines. Lesson: It is time to bond with our children and spouses. It is time to replenish our minds and nourish our imagination through solitude and personal reflection. It is time to love God and then your neighbours as yourself.

Thirdly, we have learnt that when we are assailed by a perilous and highly contagious pandemics such as Covid-19, like our President has tirelessly clarified, it ceases to be a question of convenience but rather survival.

Collective well-being and the meeting of the imperatives to achieve it take precedent. Our failure not to adhere to government guidelines on social distancing doesn’t only put the lives of our frontline health workers at risk but also those of our families and greater human race.

For those who can, let us call our district Covid-19 control taskforce and offer a carton of water, a litre of fuel, or anything of help since the government cannot supply everything. The little you give can do much. As Mother Theresa said: “It is not about how much we give but how much love we put into the giving.”

As we face coronavirus, prayer can be our weapon too. Some clerics think that we are being punished for wickedness. Thankfully, God’s mercies are new every morning and can forgive every sin. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says: “If my people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Prayer may not cure the virus, but it changes us and expunges inner impurities. It floods our hearts with divine love, and we start sharing the little we have with the hungry. During this lockdown, it gives us hope without which we cannot cope. As Pope Francis rhetorically asked in his recent Urbiet Orbi, “How many are praying, offering and interceding for the good of all? Prayer and quiet service: these are our victorious weapons.”

Conclusively, though this pandemic has wrought great pain, it will pass at some point and the apocalyptic pattern it has created will recede. It’s reassuring to know that Coronavirus is not the worst epidemic to befall mankind.

As of now, around 5.3 million people have contracted the disease with nearly 340,430 fatalities. That is a mere sprinkling compared to the 14th century bubonic plague that killed roughly 50 million people in Europe alone. Uganda has luckily had 175 confirmed cases and no death yet. We have to be cautiously optimistic and take all the precautions. And by God’s grace we shall overcome.

Mr Thomas Tayebwa is the MP for Ruhinda North County, [email protected]