Circuit Breaker

It is Day 12 of the Circuit Breaker (CB). It is hard to believe that so much has changed in just a few months. It seemed like we had just returned from our December holiday in Hawaii and California, and getting ready for another year. COVID-19 which started out in Wuhan has since swept across the globe, causing fear and panic. To date, there are more than 2.1m confirmed cases with over 145k deaths. Both in Singapore and worldwide, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets any better.

There has been countless Hollywood blockbusters made about the Earth under attacked by aliens or some maniac, and after initial chaos, the Americans jump into action and saves the world with a bit of help from the other superpowers. There are just as many movie about comic superheroes saving the day. Yet, when a real global disaster unfolds, there isn't a cape crusader and we see how fragile our world is. There has been lots of politicising, finger pointing, playing with statistics, and treating human lives as an experiment for herd immunity. Would you have believed it if someone had told you earlier that New York would have to bury the dead in mass graves in this day and age? 

Probably the only thing that remains uplifted is the US stock market. It is looking for every opportunity to reverse the losses incurred in the previous quarter. The capital markets are not emotional and does not really care about the body count. It looks at what relief measures the government is dishing out that could make the valuations add up. It is a reflection of how far removed the investors are from the issues that plague the front-liners. The markets' behaviours is as confounding as the hoarding of toilet paper.

We do often take things for granted. We know that good times don't last forever, but often we behave like it will last long enough not to affect ourselves personally. Even now, people are still going to crowded parks and supermarkets without wearing marks. People somehow believe that if something bad is going to happen, it is going to happen in their own terms and timing, under their own control.We make assumptions about how healthy, strong, fortunate, powerful or righteous we are, and how these have somehow put us in a good stead. Upon that we make assumptions about how long and abundant our lives will be. Even though we know that there can be mishaps in life, we often assign a remote chance of these things actually happening to us. 

The truth is that we live purely by the grace of God. When I was dealing with cancer more than 4 years ago, I had a deeper appreciation of the verses from James 4:13-15:

¹³ Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ 

These verses carry the truth about life. Subconsciously, my belief had been that I will live healthily until I am in my 80s and slip away peacefully. The condition that I was diagnosed with completely threw those assumptions out of the window. Each day, I live by His grace. And because of that, I must live a more caring, kinder and a more responsible life. Observe the CB - wear a mask and keep a safe distance from others.