Two Truths and a Lie

I used to love playing this theatre game with my students over the many years. Unfortunately, the game has changed and we are playing it in real time. On a daily basis, we are all trying to weed through the colossal pile of information spewing out of our screens to sift through the truths and the lies. It’s mind altering and I’m sure like me, your head is about to explode.

I am a bit of a Pollyanna who likes to look for the good in human beings before I can see the bad. I have this unbelievable hope that people are innately good on the inside and that their hearts were filled with purity and beauty upon arrival on this earth. What has happened to them on their journey is what colors their choices and creates the monsters that we sometimes see before us.

This pandemic has knocked us all off of our platforms, no matter what our platforms have been. All is different now and we have fully come to the realization that we are profoundly connected as a species. This is truly evident in the spread of this contagion we now know as Covid-19 or the Coronavirus. The vastness of the spread is so great we cannot control it. It is out of our grasps. We are frightened, jarred, off-center and we all share the same potential fate if we don’t control it. I truly believe that.

What I cannot wrap my mind around is who is lying and who is telling the truth. I want to believe the medical and scientific experts first, because they have spent their professional lives studying these infectious diseases and have a better handle on what is happening than anyone else. I want to believe that our government has our best interest in mind while dealing with this, but they seem to butt heads with the experts and that insecure banter creates the fear that we now face and feel so viscerally.

Who are we to believe? Who are we to trust? After all, when it comes to it, we are faced with our worst enemy and an even worse pandemic. Greed. The Apostle Paul said “money is the root of all evil”. This pandemic and all that is attached to it has the smell and taste of money all over it.

I don’t consider myself a politically minded person, but over the last few years, I have been forced to look more clearly at the hand we’ve been dealt as a nation. Not news to anyone, but we shouldn’t feel safe in this political environment. It feels like a ticking time bomb. What happened to “of the people, by the people and for the people? “

Our democracy was crafted to make sure there are checks and balances in place when decisions are being made that affect our country and its people. Our democracy is being shaken to its very core with this pandemic. This is an understatement. The decisions being made by the administration, I don’t feel are in our best interest. There is greed and egomania at our helm. There is narcissism which in itself is an illness of epic proportions. This leaves us with a leader who makes us feel we are under a dictatorship instead of a democracy. What I don’t understand is how this travesty is still in place. How does this controversial “democracy” continue to go on amidst one of our darkest hours? The wishy washy way the government is doling out information to its people is abhorrent. The constant fighting and bickering about PPE and ventilators needed for the states to survive this crisis , bucking the governors who say they need them and making them “play nice” with the president to get what they need to save lives is beyond all sanity. It feels like someone doesn’t want to part with their toys.

I’ll agree that this is unprecedented territory, but we are an advanced species with the wherewithal to understand the possibilities of something of this magnitude happening in our lifetime. There should have been plans in place. According to some sources, there were plans in place at the beginning of this administration, but the program was cut for whatever reason I don’t know.

I feel for all of us, particularly the many who have given over to this virus along with their families who could not be with them. My heart goes out to the caregivers and all essential personnel who have a hand in trying to save human lives and make sense of the botched system that has left then without a life preserver.

If you are reading this, I hope you are safe and well in a place that you call home. If you are essential personnel and are out working to make a difference during this pandemic, I hope you continue to be guided by a loving hand which will ease your burden as you put your life on the line for your fellow humans. May you know truth and be safe from lies that plague us all .

Two truths and a lie…how do we know which is which?