Can We Be Hopeful in the Midst of Chaos?

Hope in the midst of chaos is a great aspiration and something we can all believe in — until we’re in the midst of chaos.  

This is how I felt today as I read an article by Robin Cook, the prolific author and surgeon, on the fictionalized version of a new global pandemic that he conjectures could rival the bubonic plague.  The article, which ran in Foreign Policy Magazine, is entitled Plague: A New Thriller of the Coming Pandemic.  It’s not an actual book, but it’s a cautionary tale he wants to write (or as some suggest, it’s really just a cynical marketing ploy).  As I read today I couldn’t help but want him to write the book.  To remind us all to take these things seriously.  To give us the chance to run through the scenarios, like rehearsing a speech, feeling all the fear and the worry in advance so we can focus on the words in the moment.

But even if we rehearse, the problem is that when we face an apocalyptic future like this one, or like the harrowing version Cormac McCarthy gives us in The Road, our tendency is to panic.  And, as the antagonists do in The Road, to withdraw and act as if it’s every man for himself.  If there is a coming global pandemic, I don’t doubt, as Cook postulates, that the sick will be abandoned and the survivors will fight over dwindling resources.  And as much as I’d like to dismiss this possibility as outrageous or impossible, to do so would be irresponsible.

So, as I think about taking steps to prepare for disaster, like stockpiling food and water, and maybe, after reading this article, antibiotics and face masks, I also think about how I would want to respond.  It’s rumored that Christians during the Black Death were some of the only people willing to care for the sick.  Many died as a result.  When I think about the apocalyptic future novelists give us, that’s the character I want to play.  Not the one who holes up in his basement with his rifle or the one who hoards the medicine and food she’s stockpiled for such an emergency.

Even if the threat of a global pandemic seems preposterous, all we need to do is look around to see that disaster has already hit many of our doorsteps.

As Tom Sine of Mustard Seed Associates says in the organization’s creative response manual for an uncertain future, “As we examine some of the daunting new waves of change that could impact people all over the planet, it is important to remind ourselves that God has not lost control…We are called to live securely in the hope of that future in both good times and tough times. But we are also called to be God’s hope and compassion to vulnerable neighbors who are much more at risk in changing times than we are.”