I wasn’t sure what it would look like, or how terrible it would be, but deep in my gut I felt something squirming. An awareness. A knowing. An intuition. I had a feeling that bad days were ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am fairly certain that my intuition that we were heading toward a humanitarian crisis wasn’t unusual. I know I am not unique in this regard. It’s connected to the recent uptick in the popularity of dystopian novels and films. It’s related to the fear and anxiety that caused this nation to elect a racist, misogynistic and xenophobic president \u2014 to latch onto his tendency to scapegoat and split the unity that formed our identity. I’ve sat in circles with other sisters many times, musing over what we might do once a time of trouble arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I never thought it would be like this, a global coronavirus pandemic. Yet here we are. The crisis has arrived, and it is serious and costly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I imagined other horrors: civil wars, ecological destruction, natural disasters, mass extinctions, starvation, political upheaval. I figured that it would be ugly and awful, but the crisis wouldn’t be felt by all. (In fact, those horrors\u00a0are\u00a0<\/em>happening in the background, while many people avoid the discomfort of those realities in their daily lives.) [This is the beginning of my latest column for the online newspaper,\u00a0Global Sisters Report<\/a>. Continue reading\u00a0here<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I wasn’t sure what it would look like, or how terrible it would be, but deep in my gut I felt something squirming. An awareness. A knowing. An intuition. I had a feeling that bad days were ahead. I am fairly certain that my intuition that we were heading toward a humanitarian crisis wasn’t unusual....","protected":false},"author":4071079,"featured_media":9321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[115341],"tags":[20786359,214,1899315,694480403,44916,7140,47506,9365,401,7816,6406728,1393313,8329,2606,698755380,3785,19878,708352,49370,821219,137119,67780771,140680,30351,273111,53752,6454,99164],"series":[698756626],"class_list":["post-9315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-equity-and-justice-equity-and-justice","tag-catholic-sisters","tag-christianity","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid19","tag-crisis","tag-devotion","tag-equality","tag-examples","tag-faith","tag-god","tag-gospel-living","tag-inner-work","tag-jesus","tag-justice","tag-lent","tag-love","tag-modeling","tag-mutuality","tag-pandemic","tag-pedestals","tag-religious-life","tag-response-to-a-call","tag-self-care","tag-service","tag-signs-of-the-times","tag-social-problems","tag-the-cross","tag-vocation","series-messy-jesus-business"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/corona-4916954_1920.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"stitcher":{"key":"stitcher","url":"","label":"Stitcher","class":"stitcher","icon":"stitcher.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/feed\/podcast\/messy-jesus-business","embedCode":"The coronavirus, the cross and our vocation<\/a><\/blockquote>