When will our patience start?

We are not halfway there yet. We might not know or see or experience the halfway point. With luck, perhaps, it will pass, we will get past it, without realizing it.

Patience. How hard that is, to be patient, whether we are three or 33 or 93? Of course, once we pass 13, we are challenged to be mature role models and to set an example for others.

So here we are. Let us count the days. It is 51 days since the Skagit County commissioners declared a public health emergency; 44 days since Gov. Jay Inslee closed restaurants and then the next week, March 23, declared a State of Emergency. That was 37 days ago. May 4 the state will not open up. Opening up will be gradual. Who is going to rush to eat out, go to a concert or fly? Cruise to Alaska anyone? Go see the Seahawks? Maybe next year.

Is the governor out to destroy our – your – way of life? Is his intent to turn us into Russia, another politician’s favorite country, or heaven forbid, Sweden?

Recall another tragedy, this one fully political, the attacks of 9/11, September 2001. The president, then George W. Bush, had a completely inappropriate response to that crisis: shop.

It is as inappropriate to promote shopping, or haircuts or tattoos or working out at the gym this week as it was to shop in 2001.

Back then the churches across the country were filled Sunday after Sunday as people tried to comprehend what to most was incomprehensible. Today, the least proper thing to do is to gather together in a sanctuary. Today, the hard, proper action is no action. It is to wait, apart from friends, family (except household members), co-workers and colleagues.

If you are not immediate family you better not be together. Why? Because you love and care and do not want to take the chance that you will affect or be affected – infected – by this silent, invisible and far too-deadly virus.

Who, and what, are we in service to? If you are religious, who does your God call you to serve? If you are ethical, what do your ethics demand of you? If you are trapped by debt or pressured by piling up bill payments, can you find the courage to tell your bank or landlord “No” and find solidarity with your neighbors to demand that your politicians put your health and life above the reach of grasping bill collectors?

Whose mission is it to save the economy? What good is a good economy if you or family or neighbors are sick or dead?

The truly religious know the answer to the challenge of serving God or Mammon. Mammon is an ancient word meaning materialism, worldly gain. Recall that Marley’s Ghost, in one of the great passages in western literature, explodes at a clueless Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens “A Christmas Carol:” “Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

In the long run, we will, each of us, be gone. What do we want to do with our friends and loved ones, for ourselves, in the short run, while we are still here?

“No one on their deathbed ever said I wish I had spent more time at the office” is the old-timers joke.

Rushing back to work for a few dollars more, when they might end up being your last, or your customers or a family member when you return home with the virus is not worth the cost.

It makes neither sense nor cents.

If your life is priceless, and it is, why chance it with impatience, even as the bills mount and debts weigh you down?

Keep taking deep breaths and listen ever more closely to the question: Is there a better way to do this – live the one precious life you have been given? Believe the answer: There is.

We just have not yet been patient enough to see it, to believe it, to act on the belief.

Be patient. We will get through this. We are not halfway there yet.