On Knowing What to do in this Pandemic

Years ago, I was in the downtown Eastside of Vancouver, a very troubled corner of North America with some of the highest rates of homelessness and intravenous drug use. I was hanging out with an intentional community that had located themselves in this neighborhood as agents of grace and beauty and change.

One night, I was walking back to the community house. It was late and I heard a voice calling to me from down an empty street.

“Hey Mister!”

I was paralyzed by this. I didn’t know what to do so I tried to ignore the person, but the voice kept calling out to me.

“Hey Mister!” It was a girl’s voice.

The street was poorly lit, and I was alone in an unfamiliar city. My pace quickened as did my heart rate, but she was running toward me.

When she caught up to me a few things became apparent: She was young, maybe 17 or 18. She was tiny, barely five feet tall. And she had an intellectual disability.

“Hey Mister,” she said, “I’ll let you do something to me for two dollars.”

In a good story, I know just the right thing to do at this point. I create an amazing moment where the girl is delivered of her addiction to drugs and selling her dignity for two dollars. Or I break through with my clever words, ushering her into a community that patiently walks alongside her into a place of wholeness and healing. In a good story there is at least a powerful epiphany even if there’s no tidy end; An aha moment where the meaning of it all comes into sharp relief. In a good story, something powerful happens. Something beautiful. Something redemptive.

But this isn’t one of those stories. This is one of those I-have-no-idea-what-to-do stories. It’s a just-keep-walking-until-she-goes-away sort of story. I was too paralyzed and dumbfounded and sad for this to be one of those good stories. Instead, it’s one of those stories where I am confronted with my mediocrity and frailty and impotence.

Truth be told, the vast majority of tragic things I encounter up close are of the I-don’t-know-what-to-do variety. They are the stories with no powerful conclusion, no great revelation, no clear hero or villain. Stories where I just keep walking because I don’t know what else to do.

What if COVID-19 is one of those stories? I keep looking for a redemptive outcome, or a grand ending where I become part of some heroic new reality; the dawn of a new age that is ironically better because of this tragic pandemic. But it’s beginning to look like just another one of those don’t-know-what-to-do stories – another of the many sad, sad stories where I keep walking because I don’t know what else to do.

I run a some errands for elderly neighbors. I try not to hoard. I work from home. And in the end there is no spectacular, miraculous punch line.

So, I make peace with my own mediocrity and our global frailty and our beautiful perseverance. And. Just. Keep. Moving. Forward.