Fr. Don's Daily Reflection
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
Tales from Two Cities
A report from Sweden comes via a Zoom conversation with Bardia, a 2020 graduate of a small liberal arts university in Minnesota (USA). Lest you think ‘blond hair and blue eyes’, I should tell you that Bardia is a black-haired Persian (Iranian) and lives in Gothenburg, a city of 1 million. (There are 70,000 Iranians in Sweden.)
Bardia’s graduation is marked by distinction for having written 1) the Outstanding Senior Thesis of 2020: Implementation Considerations for Mitigating Bias in Supervised Machine Learning. 2) And maintaining an A in every course for 4 years.
Asked about restrictions in Sweden during the reign of Covid-19, he says confinement has “not meant much”. “The government has imposed restrictions on the number of people that can be in one space simultaneously but has chosen to avoid Stay at Home orders and lockdowns.”
“Staying six feet away from people in public spaces is required, but otherwise, life has not changed much in Sweden.” Restaurants, businesses, the malls, gyms have all remained open while washing hands frequently, not touching one’s face, not having large gatherings, etc., are urged on everyone.
“Unemployment has definitely not been affected to the same extent as in the U.S. Obviously a pandemic will bring about economic repercussions, but since restaurants and small businesses remain open and accessible due to a lack of Stay-at-Home orders, they have found ways to stay alive.”
“The Swedish universal healthcare system makes testing accessible to the immunocompromised, those with symptoms and healthcare workers, but the healthcare demand has been hard to keep up with in Sweden for a long time, even before the pandemic.” It is possible that the larger death per equivalent population numbers (as compared to the U.S) stem from this inability to handle many cases.
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Clark is a 34-year-old American studying in Jilin City, a metropolitan area of about 4 million in northeastern China. With a good grasp of Mandarin, he now hopes to do graduate work at a Chinese university.
Clark loves China and seems likely to make a life there. A few weeks ago, Jilin City was joining other parts of China in reopening schools, businesses (e.g., Starbucks), etc.
But now a new outbreak (30 new cases) has the city closing businesses, taking a step back. This second outbreak is closing schools in Jilin City and Stay at Home has been reinstituted; Clark is confined to his dorm room on the university campus. Now, all meals are delivered to your door by university personnel robed in protective clothing.
Clark says the food, while adequate, “is no fair trade for the free lifestyle he enjoyed — climbing mountains, making friends, going out to restaurants — before the Covid-19 outbreak.” The Stay-at-Homes order will be at least for 14 days.
Jilin City has distinctions antedating Covid-19. E.g., In Jilin City pheasants are more like sparrows in their ubiquity. The birds originate in this part of China. Also, readers in north central USA might be heartened to read that the area of Jilin City is colder than Minnesota with summer heat only getting to 85 degrees Fahrenheit as a high and winters often making it to -20 Fahrenheit.
Clark’s social life right now is almost entirely electronic, Zoom, FaceTime, phone, etc. These blessings enable him to connect with people from all over the world, from Benin where he was a Peace Corps volunteer, to Beijing where he worked for an outdoor sports company.
“Conversations with my friends from the Muslim village in which I lived for 3.5 years in Benin remind me of the importance of prayer during this epidemic. They offer the solemn comfort that all this is ultimately in God’s hands.”
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
