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BSC Flat Curve
Graphic courtesy of Birmingham-Southern College.
A member of Union, a physician and assistant professor at a local medical school, was talking with me on the phone about Union's procedures in the face of the Covid 19 epidemic and she said a couple things that I haven't heard anyone talk about. Beyond public gatherings and face touching, she spoke about the ripple, pastoral effects of what we're about to face.
- Healthcare workers are going to go through hell. When the first wave of healthcare workers (hospital & family practice staff) catch Corona Virus, other healthcare workers will be called into their places. If we end up with a situation like Italy, the pastoral care needed for health care workers who watch patients die in hallways and make life-or-death calls because of limited resources will be significant. American healthcare workers don't usually have to deal with realities like this. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE CONGREGANTS. Check in with them.
- The family members of healthcare workers are going to face trials. There is a good chance that their family members will be put in quarantine apart from their families. That means that for 2-3 weeks, a lot of people will become temporary single parents. Kids will be upset. Parents will be stressed. We can organize healthy, low-risk members of our congregations to help provide relief and moments of rest in situations like this. I guarantee you: love like this will be remembered for a life time by these families.
- A lot of people are going to die. Many healthy, able-bodied 20-50somethings will be cavalier about the whole thing and then some of their otherwise healthy parents / grandparents will end up in the hospital and many won't make it out. In many cases, their family members may not be able to visit them. BUT IT WON'T JUST BE GRANDPARENTS. The brother who nobody knew was taking immunosuppressants and the best friend with a well-treated respiratory illness whom everyone thought was fine--some of them are going to die as well and it's going to be a huge shock to people. If you feel "lazy" not working for the first couple days of this epidemic, don't. We will all be called upon for a lot of hours of pastoral care and a lot of hours of funerals. Rest while we can.
Her words struck a deep chord with me about ripple effects I hadn't even thought of in the stress of deciding what we cancel, what we continue and how we change coffee shop operations. It stopped me in my tracks and I thought I'd share. I hope that the things above are an overreaction, but my guess is that they aren't. Let's take care of each other in the coming unknown. They will know we are Christians by our love and not our fear.It's good to be in ministry with all of you in this time.
The Rev. Michael Baughman serves as pastor of Union Coffee House, an entrepreneurial United Methodist fellowship in Dallas, TX. This post is republished with his permission from Facebook. To protect the physician's confidentiality, we don't include our usual link to the original post.