Dear Editor,

The unforeseen intrusion of COVID-19 on our lives and standard of normality has certainly exposed our feebleness in the wake of occasions such as this. The surface responses of distancing requirements, wearing face masks, and accelerated hygiene that have kept the virus at bay for the most part may be nothing more than keeping your distance from a raging fire without the benefit of water to kill it or prevents its recurrence.

It is commendable that as humans we can rally so effectively to blunt the effects of a monstrous virus without the privilege of prior warning or full grasp of its complexity. Yet, this unheralded twist of time has also twisted several things about us, including hope, prudence and soberness as depression and violence rise amidst chaotic grappling with the time.

The mandatory wearing of masks has certainly unmasked a stark reality about us — that we are not the captains of our destiny beyond the permission of time and circumstances.

When the need for parties, crowds, and pre-COVID-19 existence beckons, and discipline is backed against the ropes, reckless freedom holds sway. But impulses that breach rules do not permit freedom. As Francis Bacon says, “Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”

Regretfully, times like a coronavirus pandemic do little to show that obedience to nature alone isn’t the eventual answer to moments such as this, but rather it is obedience to the creator of nature itself.

Homer Sylvester

Mount Vernon, New York, USA

h2sylvester@gmail.com