Lockdown 46

Lockdown Day 46 - 11 May 2020

Monday. The 7th Monday since Lockdown began. 

And we are already in week 7. I find myself in lockdown limbo, scanning the media for any sign of hope that level 3 will soon be announced. But nothing. In fact there are speculations that school opening dates will be postponed. Today I am allowing myself to miss how things were. I suppose all of us are going to have these days from time to time. To say it out loud already helps a great deal. I spoke to a friend who described this lockdown limbo very well. She said it’s not the travel ban that gets her, but the simple fact that we can’t go about our duties as it suits our families and jobs or businesses. Being told what you can and can’t. The time constraints for exercise don’t help either. 

I totally agree with social distancing. But as Winston Churchill said, “ If you destroy a free market you create a black market. If you make 10 000 regulations you destroy all respect for the law.” 

Wise words. 

That is the vibe in SA at the moment. And it shows in the numbers. Painfully so in certain places. Anybody who is not complying, has absolutely no respect for themselves or their fellow countrymen. I suspect many of us who are law abiding citizens find ourselves in this lockdown  limbo. All of us know at least one person who is a smoker, and they’ll tell you how easy it is to get hold of the stuff on the black market. 

First Churchill box ticked. Also, many of us know of others who don’t feel heard and respected, and then you get those people who are living dangerously from day 1, doing whatever they want. Second Churchill box ticked.

In all fairness the task of our Prez and his people is at the very least daunting. I don’t know what I would decide in this catch 22 situation. But what I do know is that a choice needs to be made soon. Neither choice is going to be easy and neither will magically ‘cure’ our country. But maybe the people could wake up less troubled and hungry, and comply to social distancing out of respect for a government who acknowledges how important their work force is to this self sustaining productive country. Let's make plans to look after one another in stead of giving an abominable virus the stage. And shift focus from the virus to what we know will work for our country.

Truth found me today in the words of Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng who said, “We are exposed — we are not protected — and my call is to all those who can pray to see it as an absolute necessity, starting from today, to do so......at least every Wednesday and every Sunday.... knowing that, with prayer, nothing is impossible.” 

We stand accountable. Because we know God's got this.