By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
The Prime Minister has made the call to stay calm and keep the faith.
At first it was easy to think he is talking about the health security blanket we have wrapped around Samoa to keep out the coronavirus.
Yes that is true but it is more than that. The call swirls largely around our strong Christian faith and the power of prayers to ward off the threat of the pandemic to our safety.
Miracles are mysterious in their own divine ways.
Maybe in biblical times there were rolling thunders and blistering lightening before a booming voice rose from behind some virgin bush in the deserts, to guide the Children of Israel safely to the Promised Land.
We have not been blessed with a similar experience in recent times but we never know.
Our Servants of the Lord have had a lot of success drumming into our faith how the Lord works in mysterious ways.
Lately some of our God people, unhappy with being asked to pay income taxes, have been calling on the faithful to assert their power of the vote to oust the current Caesar from political power.
If that works, would that be seen as the ‘mysterious ways’ of the Lord? Again, anything is possible.
Perhaps the moral of the story would be better explained by another mystery we have been conditioned to accept as beyond the reach of our God given intelligence.
“Things happen for a reason.”
How often have we heard that! Why do we readily accept it?
The coronavirus has killed more than a million people and infected millions and millions more. Why is it happening? What is in it for us?
The best answer we can offer with some credibility is to wait. If the mysterious ways are not revealed in this temporary world we live in then maybe all will be explained in the next life.
But if miracles are beyond our limited human understanding then what should we do? What we can do in the case of this pandemic?
Social distancing. Wear a mask. Wash your hands thoroughly. Shower often. Don’t gather in large groups….
In short stay healthy. Surely it does not take a miracle to do that!
Hold on! What if that is the mysterious way we have to follow for the miracle of our safety we are praying to happen?
The doctors are saying we should do all that for our own protection and good health. There you go!
If in our faith we believe that God gifted the doctors with the powers of healing is that not Him guiding us with a booming voice to the promise of good health?
So doctors are not always successful…fair enough. But that brings us right back to the premises of ‘… things happen for a reason.’
For the last 9 months our medical brains devised a system of health cover to keep us safe from the reaches of the pandemic.
With the exception of the two suspected coronavirus cases who are yet to be fully confirmed, essentially we are protected.
Thank you Lord for our dedicated frontline workers.
If we want to be a lot safer then there is an option we have in place right now for that.
We just have to isolate the whole of Samoa from any contacts with the outside world.
Yes it is rather extreme and we have to make sure there are no pandemic carriers on the island before we shut it off from the whole world.
In fact that is the final option according to our new colour coded levels of health risk alert and subsequent protective actions our NEOC people have mapped out to follow.
The swing from green to indicate at the start a coronavirus-free environment, takes us through a series of colours determined by the level of risks.
At the extreme end is the red danger zone.
If and when we do get there – despite all our good efforts and because it has to happen for a reason – then we really do become an island.
Who cares if the ‘…no man is an island’ warning starts to flash on and off.
Better to have one man on the island than just an empty island with bird droppings all over the place.
But that does not mean there is no light of hope at the end of this dark global tunnel od death we are stumbling around in.
The miracle of a vaccine is within reach. If it is a living miracle we want there it is right there.
Before we start asking if we were cursed with the coronavirus pandemic and why, lets heed the Prime Minister’s call. Stay calm and keep the faith!
Things happen for a reason! The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Forgive our questioning minds Lord on Your rest day. If it is a sin for us to question Your divine ways then we pray for mercy.
We are only humans.
