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"Fear mongering can destroy the economy, create worldwide panic, and result in far more deaths and fear and destruction than letting this virus play its course.”
In his conclusion to a tremendously careful article in the most recent Altucher’s Investment Network, James Altucher hits it square.
He is not the only one out there pointing out that only the most extremist reading of the facts imply that the real threat of coronavirus is all of us getting sick and dying. The great destruction is the dismantling of a global economy that, unlike the cars not selling off dealer lots right now, will not just start back up with a touch of a button.
We are inland of this economic tsunami. China is ground zero, with its 21st century gambit to be the world leader of assembly line manufacturing now seriously jeopardized. But that impact is one that we will not even hear about until months from now. Meanwhile, just how far inland that economic wave will come by the time we try to reboot City-Life America is anyone’s guess.
My only contention is that we are underestimating “it", because we are so much more afraid of the virus than “it". We created “it” by pushing the closest thing to an “off” button the USA has.
So personally, the fear killing my mind has more to do with what we might find three weeks from now.
This doesn’t mean that I’m hoping to get sick! The threat that this mutation, closely related to the common cold and SARS, poses to me and mine is fair enough:
- My aging father's health has been declining significantly for the last year.
- Several of my children are plagued by immunodeficiencies that affect their respiratory systems.
- One of these children, due to another allergic reaction, is currently still recovering from several major welts caused by contact with the allergen. This is the definition of a “compromised immune system."
- My sister's children have similar scenarios.
- My wife is only just finding health again after years of battling a malnutrition we only this year learned was the heritage of a childhood venture into vegetarianism. She eats cow now and is doing so much better, but she is still in a malnourished and recovering state.
- Meanwhile, my most recent head cold joined up with spring-time allergies leaving me with congestion precisely in the place that coronavirus is most likely to hit.
And every single one of you reading this has a similar trail of stories and names and concerns.
Yes, there are reasons to fear this virus.
But fear is the mind killer.
Fear is the logos killer.
Fear is the lie, whose power is imagination and whose substance is less than a breath.
Truth is another matter.
And truth is always bigger than me.
The fact is this: on a worldwide scale, whether from virulent or economic disaster, 2020 will be a year of excessive death tolls, heaped upon new and unexpected pains and trials that we as a civilization were wholly unprepared to face a month ago.
BUT this is not the end of the world.
This is a moment of reckoning for an age too-content to embrace its own decay.
This is an ordeal of cosmic proportions by which the mettle of faith and life shall be tested.
This is a time during which we should expect a small or even great falling away.
And, this is a time when the church of Jesus Christ will find herself strengthened to courageous new heights and levels of conviction, the likes of which before were entirely unimaginable.
James says, "Hopefully, the factories will re-open, the economic situation will get back on track, and then the real hard work begins.”
Building on the ashes is never a dream come true, but wallowing in the muck is for pigs and zombies. When forced to rebuild from the ground up, there is ample opportunity to make some much needed upgrades.
Those who trust in Jesus Christ are like Mount Zion which cannot be moved.
Agoras-thaeta gar Timeis!
Rev. Fisk
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