This is a time for our compassion to 'runneth over'
The book Dear Life is a guide to incorporating a good death into the fabric of life. The author, Rachel Clarke, a medical doctor, narrowly survived a bombing in a London pub that killed many others. Regretting that her lack of training left her unable to deal with the overwhelming emergency around her, she later decided to devote her career to the needs felt by everyone at the end of life.
The premise of her book, based on experience in hospice care, is that, even as life draws to a close, people still want to live as well as they can. Especially when time is precious, life wants to "runneth over" as in the biblical measure.
In our present difficult time, this principle can apply to all of us. Surely the virus has made us more aware of our human fragility and our communal responsibility to protect one another. But now is the time also to exercise our capacity to make life more pleasant and worthwhile for ourselves and each other.
Doctor and author Rachel Clarke.Credit:Lucy Gallant
Luckily "the eyes are the window of the soul" when a mask eclipses our smile and muffles our greeting. Even at 1.5 metres it's important to continue acknowledging the presence of others sharing our space. Courtesy is easily lost. And as we now know, the civility we prize in ourselves and our society can be forgotten in one bout of panic buying.
The world we create during this crisis is the one we'll return to after it has passed. While a "siege mentality" is understandable, it isn't an attitude that promotes the healthy community spirit we need to foster.
We must resist the urge to treat our neighbours merely as potential carriers – they are our fellow citizens joining us in being asked to do their bit for our state and nation.
We also need to keep in touch with those we know, even without much news to share, via all the means available to us. We can't afford the consequences of letting family members and friends become lonely, anxious or despondent – particularly when a phone call, a text, a letter or a video chat may provide just the amount of heart they need to carry on.
While the world may change in many respects post-virus, we want it to be one in which we can live in peace and good conscience with each other. The example of Christ is, as always, relevant to us here. If we can, like him, continue to "act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with our God" (Micah), during this testing time, we can hope to return to the same world we know and cherish.
Carol Frost is a Melbourne writer.