Coronavirus: Everybody's praying

I woke up in the middle of the night and thought, "Everybody in America is praying."  Then I went back to sleep.  The thought returned in the morning.  "Praying" includes, I think, opening an email by saying, "I hope you are well," or closing a phone call by saying, "Stay safe!"  This is very Shakespearean: "I pray thee, good Sir, don't get sick."  In that sense, I am praying all the time -- when I think of my children, my nieces and nephews, my friends, my neighbors, it is with the prayer, "Be well, stay safe" in my heart.  It helps me understand the phrase, "Pray all the time," which the Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, a small group of early Christians living in the frightening circumstances of their time. "Pray all the time" hardly fits with the busy-ness of ordinary life (you know, last month).  Who had time to pray all the time?  But now I think of it as breathing in, "Be safe," and breathing out, "Stay well."

Apostle Paul also suggested to the Thessalonians, "Thank God no matter happens."  Which raises the question, "How is God related to coronavirus?"  But then the answer that comes to mind for me is that They (God)* created everything, including evolution, ergo, newly emerged viruses fall into that category.  But why thank Them for newly emerged viruses that are shutting down the world as I know it?

I think about this a lot.  The best answer I can come up is that the world is what it is, which is to say complicated, and it has good and bad and stupid in it.  I especially don't like stupid, but it seems to have been part of human societies since forever, posing profound questions.  Which reminds me of a Facebook post I saw, with a photo of a man carrying a donkey across a minefield.

The post said, "The moral of the story is that during difficult times the first ones you have to keep under control are the jackasses who don't understand the danger and do as they please."  With deepest apologies to donkeys, who have a lot of wisdom but might not know about minefields, it is an interesting observation.  And so instead of wondering about why evolution included viruses, I am wondering why it included people who ignore danger?  So far, no answer to that, and no answers as to why I should be grateful for them.  But maybe the whole point of being grateful for everything is that the world is one whole web of interdependent life (and not just the particular way of life I had March 1, 2020).  I can't pick and choose parts of the web I like, leaving out the parts I don't like.  I can't see the web unless I accept the principle that it is one thing.  I can't get the point except through gratitude for the whole.  

Which brings me back to the idea that woke me from sleep, that we are all praying.  And what I can conclude for sure is that in world with stupid people and evolving viruses, I really do need to pray all the time!

*I heard somebody refer to God as "they" and I thought it was profound and useful.