Faith in a Time of Crisis

By Alston Ng

Tens of thousands infected, and the battle’s just begun. What should we do when a seemingly unstoppable coronavirus punctures the dream of an earthly sanctum?

A notebook entry of Fitzgerald reads, “Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.” It is in the crucible of misery and suffering that heroism prevails. First responders at the scene of 9/11 soldiered through the herculean task of sifting through debris for months on end, their ashen faces crinkling behind paper-thin masks with sweat and soot. They confronted tragedy with a stoic spirit of steel, unaware that tragedy is staring back, stalking their rears - slowly but alarmingly, many are succumbing to serious debilitative illnesses induced by exposure to dust, smoke and chemicals at ground zero. The cost of heroism is steep. 

Plagues, like the SARS pandemic of 2003 and the current coronavirus epidemic from Wuhan, China, are a different beast of tragedy. They thrust to the fore our common vulnerability to mortality, and press all the buttons that compel seclusion, self-isolation, self-preservation. 

I was only 7 when SARS reached our shores - I had barely begun formal education when a national emergency was declared. I barely remember a thing about it. The present predicament about a certain “demon virus” originating in the bowels of China, on the other hand, has been a real cause for anxiety. My feelers begin to twitch and then go into overdrive whenever someone coughs or sneezes or sniffles in public - I thought I may even sense danger and sickness in the air. One thought grips my mind: are we about to face an apocalyptic ‘super-pandemic’, the sort about which experts had long been warning? 

That the many Guardian outlets I visited ran out of masks and hand sanitizers is a telling indicator that I am not alone with my nerves. Under such circumstances it is easy to set our imagination loose and assume the worst case scenario: the storm is already here; the calm is long gone. 

It is paramount in times like these, nevertheless, to keep our cool. 

Hysteria and mass panics are precisely the reasons why governments tend to withhold information from the public. As was urged by Bishop Revd. Dr. Chong, we must avoid causing undue alarm by forwarding fake news and rumours from unverified sources. 

At the same time, however, having our wits about us does not necessitate a resolute, self-blaming denial of our anxieties. Even more so, it should not entail us an instinctive capitulation to and recitation of Christian-ish soundbites and clichés like “The good Lord will surely protect me” or “God has a plan for me; I just got to believe it!”.

Sure, we ought to remember our place in Christ and His lordship over all. But an uncritical acceptance of these ‘Biblical truths’ with an equally feverish denial of our fears, worries, and doubts - rather ironically and counterintuitively - challenges the lordship of Christ, since we strive to silence our anguish and anxiety on our own terms, using the Word of God as a dispensary for self-help ‘positive-thinking’ pills. To duck behind such careless biblical platitudes is not only impractical but it also signs a death warrant on our spiritual growth.

Heroism is not born of the absence of fear, but its embrace. As American general G. S. Patton observed, “Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.” Even Jesus, God incarnate, experienced a deep anguish at the prospect of being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Praying more earnestly, “his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Lk 22:44). Courage is not unfeeling, but bears the cross with a heavy, sorrowful heart. It bears the cup with passion (a word whose Latin root means ‘suffering’) and says, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Lk 22:42). 

Heroism - the mettle of spirit - begins in weakness but does not seek to escape it. Instead, it bears with it till the battle’s won. The frontline medical staff who returned to their stations in Wuhan to serve the sick and contagious earn our praise not merely for their professionalism, but also for their ethic of self-giving, self-denying care - even as the healthcare system crumbles under a palpable climate of distress and frustration, they continually put themselves in harm’s way to bring relief to the afflicted. 

The cost of heroism is steep, insofar as one is subject to variable and hostile conditions. Many in the Wuhan medical corps have already been infected with the virus, and thus unwittingly and unwillingly lose their lives to propagate the virus they pledged to contain and eradicate. The cost of heroism, more importantly, must also entail a bearing up of fear, anxiety, guilt, and anguish - an enormous affective burden that is placed on the shoulders of each human being who serves out in the field. 

What then should we do? 

Sympathise, commiserate with others, and consider the case of a distressed brother or sister as your own, as was written by Paul: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). If you are fearful or distressed about the virus as I am, do not flee from your fears but embrace them.

Fear, in reminding us of our inescapable humanity, conjoins us to others, helps us feel with (sym-pathos) them. If we may look upon the face of the other - the foreign and the familiar, the faraway and the near at hand - and feel with them, we’d soon find the bitter, petty calculus of self-preservation recede into background. In its place emerges a desire to bear the burden of the other.  I can think of no better way by which we may pray “more earnestly” for ourselves and others.