And can it be, after centuries of abuse, that the earth is responding to our over-use of the planet? Is Earth, in its generous and good nature, giving back to mankind something that is only marginally deadly but yet sends a clear and strong response to our excesses?
We have abused Earth with our carbon-spewing cars and machinery and factories; we have abused Earth with our over-farming; we have abused Earth with the general destruction of natural resources: trees, animals, and our incessant digging into the earth for precious jewels, precious metals, precious oil reserves.
Could Coronavirus be Earth’s response to mankind?
We’ve had flooding, earthquakes, all sorts of natural disasters. Mankind has cleaned up and carried on. Now, on a global scale, we are being forced to STOP our shopping, our socialisation, our travel, all in an effort to curb the overall human death rate. Factories closed in China first — arguably the greatest emitter of carbon fuel waste. Streets around Europe are bereft of people, certainly the epicentre of the international bustling economy. New York has effectively shut down: New York City the 24/7 city of excess. Why? Because man is desperately holding on to the one thing more important than money: life itself.
How many times when there is loss do we say, “Well, we have our health at least.” Now our health, on a global scale, is under threat. And so we do all we can to protect humanity’s most precious asset: life itself.
In centuries long past, Greta Thornberg would be burnt as a witch, if authorities thought she’d cast a spell to create Coronavirus. Or the Jews would be blamed because their superior cleanliness would have protected them, yielding a death toll lower than the average (apparently there are some absurd murmurings even today that are attempting to blame the Jews for global economic chaos). But centuries ago, Earth was not bereft, raped, its natural beauty and purity stripped and abused, as it has been on every continent today.
Today we have conspiracy theories, speculations as to how Coronavirus was started. Did the Chinese do this on purpose, to distract the world from its stagnating economy? Have wealthy entrepreneurs and big business caused this deliberately to manipulate the stock market? Have phoney philanthropists caused this to curb the escalating world population?
Or quite simply, has Earth responded to centuries of abuse, to wake up mankind to its dereliction of duty, which has always been to protect and preserve it?
Man was created and given Earth as a responsibility
“Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15)
Is this chaos ultimately GOD’s fault, a punishment for our abuse?
Or, in the sage words of the American young poet Max Ehrmann, who lost his right to copyright by sharing his Desiderata of hope during the disastrous Depression (1929-1939), perhaps
“the universe is unfolding as it should.”