America on the Brink

The Covid Pandemic Exposed America The world has experienced staggering loss of life and the loss of our way of life. In the face of that loss, too many leaders and citizens were and are prioritizing petty partisan squabbles, trafficking in misinformation, and politicizing public health issues over saving lives and caring for others. We often lament the lack of civility today, but political scientists have been warning that we are becoming ungovernable. Over the past year, we saw that reality play out in disturbing ways. 2020 was a time of social upheaval. America’s demons – racism and deep social inequities linked to poverty - manifested on a grand scale. We all saw horrifying examples of how racism and poverty kill. Yet, rather than addressing these longstanding blights on our national character, we waste precious mental and moral energy justifying the very grotesque policies and systems that perpetuate this violence. We witnessed the culmination of decades of decisions by leaders on both sides of the aisle that severely weakened our infrastructure. While we have poured funding into weapons and defense technologies, critical agencies like the postal service and local health departments did not have the resources and support needed to deliver essential services to citizens. These agencies lack core technologies for streamlining work and eliminating redundancies. In the face of the pandemic, they were crippled by gridlock making it nearly impossible to efficiently create and implement testing and vaccination programs. No one was ready to meet the challenge of Covid-19. From our government leaders to our local citizenry, we were unprepared. Our disastrous attempts at responding to the It may feel distasteful to talk about a new crisis while we are still dealing with this one. However, visionary leadership requires us to plan for the future while addressing the present. One way to plan for what’s next is to stop blaming everyone else for what went wrong. Too many of us abdicate our responsibility to others, from politicians to neighbors who stand on the other side of our beliefs and opinions. We refuse to pause and take stock of the role we played. Unless we reflect on our own personal missteps and the lessons we learned as a result, we will not be able to navigate through the continued challenges of this current crisis. We need to weave critical self-reflection into the fabric of our society as a social value practiced by all. Only then will we have the wisdom, courage, strength, and unity needed to survive, eventually heal, and be ready for whatever comes next. Time for America to Reflect and Correct As difficult as moments of social upheaval are, there is hope. We have a choice in what kind of nation we want to be moving forward. America can be better than who we have been if we take time to reflect and course correct, practices rooted in the Christian tradition. pandemic impacted millions of lives around the globe. So, my question is, “Are we ready for the next crisis?” My preliminary answer is “No, we are not.”

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