We all know the story if we've paid any attention to the news: A viral terror extended throughout the world, beginning in December 2019. Its name: COVID-19. COVID-19 is hardly the first coronavirus that has inflicted many countries in the world. Coronaviruses are common, and many people suffer from them yearly. However, this year, it seems that the world not only suffers from those lesser coronaviruses, or even so much from COVID-19, but also a greater "Coronavirus." While mobs fought like jackals for toilet paper, cans of soup, and hand sanitizer, our common enemy crept into our hearts.
Coronavirus, looking at the first part of the word Corona has several definitions. The first, according to both the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Dictionary.com, refers to a crown. The second definition refers to the upper section of a body part. The third refers to botany: the inner trumpet-like part of some flowers.
These definitions intrigue me because since we call the virus a coronavirus, it must be a virus that affects either the upper portion of the body (head, respiratory system, and the heart) or the inner part of the body. In either case, the virus can do great damage when that section of our body is at risk. A second interesting factor is that the corona for both flowers and human beings controls, to an extent, what particles enter and leave the body.
Laying these definitions and scientific assumptions aside, what is the common enemy that crept into our hearts and souls like a coronavirus? Here are some words to describe it: Pride, Envy, Selfishness, Anger, Hatred, Prejudice, Racism... I could continue, but hopefully, this will suffice for now. COVID-19 frightens people; many have become ill and died from it. Undermining it does us no good because science proves that it exists. However, we must direct more attention to the coronavirus that afflicts our emotions, soul, and spirit. While people are dying from physical illness, many more of our brothers and sisters (for we should see each other as such) are steadily wasting away under the claims of hatred and disgust, of pride and selfishness.
I wish to address the third definition (or the first) that I shared from those two sources: the crown, often referring to a crown of light or halo. The enemy that has made its way into our lives in the middle of the pandemic has blinded our minds and diminished our light: the light that comes from having charity toward God and others. We made it easy. We yielded an inch by putting our needs above those of others and gave up a mile instead.
Some future day when there is an effective vaccine for COVID-19, the pandemic for COVID-19 will also end, but unless we soften our hearts and allow love to fill us once more, the pandemic for the greatest coronavirus will continue until we cease to live. Let us protect ourselves from the worst coronavirus.
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