We are social distancing and yet, our whole country, and indeed the whole world, is bound together in a bonding of mutual peril the likes of which many of us have never experienced before in our lives. Every country is at war and yet, every country is our ally.
Greetings fellow Jailbirds!
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I hope you are well and not too bored while in your houses social distancing and/or in self-isolation.
My job as a priest was one of the first declared "non-essential" so that's been good for my humility.
I'm being good too - only going out for necessities. Mind you, even that is starting to get annoying.
All my life I've seen spray cans of Glen 20 on the supermarket shelves and never bothered to find out what Glen 20 actually is.
Now, I finally find out what it is because I need some, but when I go to buy it, it's all gone!
It's so popular that some people aren't calling this year 2020 but rather "Glen 2020".
Okay, you know what Glen 20 is, but I bet you don't know how they came up with the name Glen 20.
Apparently there was this guy called Glen and he invented a disinfectant surface spray and took it to some chemists for mass production.
They said to him "Glen, this stuff is rubbish. Your spray will spread germs, not kill them!"
So Glen went back to his garage and six months later came up with a better version and he called it "Glen 2".
Again he was rejected: "It's better Glen; but your product still stinks."
So Glen went back to his garage again, and six months later, he came back to them with the new and improved "Glen 3".
Unfortunately for Glen, his third attempt was also clean rejected.
But Glen didn't give up there; he tried again.
Well, I don't want to waste too much of your incarceration, so I'll cut to the end of the story.
Glen goes back to the chemists with his latest and greatest, "Glen 19". The chemists happily smile at Glen and say, "Glen, you've really cleaned up your act! This is fantastic!
"We think you're almost there! Glen, if you can just make one more improvement on your "Glen 19", we'll mass produce it and make you rich!"
Glen was furious. So he gave them a spray, "You pack of dirty, dirty.... That's it! I've had it! I quit! You can have my clearly useless research! My apron! You can have my garage for all I care! I quit and forever!"
If Glen had only known how close he was.
Okay, it's not my greatest joke, but it would certainly have to be my cleanest.
During these COVID-19 days, paradoxes abound, and yet, they are true.
We are social distancing and yet, our whole country, and indeed the whole world, is bound together in a bonding of mutual peril the likes of which many of us have never experienced before in our lives.
Every country is at war and yet, every country in the world is our ally, as we all fight together against the same enemy.
If you truly love someone, you won't hug them.
If you want to spread love and kindness all over the world, you will stay away from everyone and stay at home.
This is the war of our generation and all we have to do is stay home.
Isolation and social distancing is not a joke and it really does save lives.
By the time you read this the stats will be worse, but at time of writing this article, in Australia we have 4,460 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 19 deaths.
In Italy there are 101,739 cases with a death rate of near 9% because their health system was unprepared and so became overwhelmed.
I know many are saying they are getting sick of hearing about the need to "flatten the curve".
Let us never get sick of the term flattening the curve because that is the path our country is taking and we all need to be lovingly and loyally united on this or it will not work.
If we slow down infections then everyone can have access to ICU units and many lives will be saved. By the time Italy reached 3,500 cases of coronavirus their country had approximately 350 people already dead.
Slowing the spread will also give time to develop drugs and vaccines. Let's stay alive by staying away.