Refl ections on the Covid-19
pandemic John Hills
It goes without saying – but still needs
to be said – that none of us has known anything quite like March and April’s Covid pandemic in our lifetime. Let’s hope we won’t reacquaint ourselves with anything like it again. The nature of an ‘inner psychic wound’ is
rather akin to a fault line in a rock formation; unimportant until and unless the pressure on the rock becomes intolerable. The rock inevitably ‘gives’ along the fault line of the rock; though this is not always so. It is said with the physical material of our bodies, like bones, which when they fracture and heal bond together more strongly than before. It is the other parts of the bone that give. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato
contended 2000 years ago: “This is the greatest error in the treatment
of sickness that there are physicians for the body and physician for the soul and yet the two are one and indivisible.” However, modern medicine divides
the body into about 24 sub-specialisms, a long way from Plato’s holism. Where is the ‘conjoining’ between all these? Nowhere, one suspects. The medical profession appears oblivious of the conjoining, conceptual framework that systemic thinking provides. Multiplying the levels of those professions
and practices that abut the medical profession – the human services; where are the conjoining links there? Where is the training in conjoined working across all services that tend to the human mind, body, heart and soul? Nowhere! “Only connect” E.M. Forster wrote in the novel Howard’s End. “But what to what?” is the blank and silent response echoing eerily and unanswered around the ecosphere. The Covid-19 pandemic feels like we
inhabit an interminable movie, in slow motion. We can’t get of out the cinema so just have to sit and endure the movie. This one’s weird enough. It’s of mixed genre;
part surreal horror show; part sci-fi in which the earth is invaded by strange destructive aliens; part post-apocalyptic story where the nuclear bomb has dropped; the monster from the sea that has lurked in the depths for eons is out and stalking the earth. The studios have combined for one ‘biggy’– King Kong, Godzilla, Jurassic Park reptiles have all joined forces; Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster are on the prowl with the Terminator, all crying out together “I AM YOUR WORSE NIGHTMARE”. Indeed they are. “It must be a dream”, you tell yourself.
But no, the statistics of rising death rates; the tales of the savage tragic loss of young children, of helpers, of a mother in labour (but saving her child), of the elderly, the frail, the innocent, the kind and the good. This killer knows no justice or fair judgement. How will it end? When will it end? Here at home eff ectively ‘under house arrest’.
And yet the kindness – the appreciation of small unremarkable acts of generosity and sacrifi ce. Did we have to live through a war to see the sacrifi cial and selfl ess side of our human nature? Or read about past and distant heroisms? No – not at all. We are surrounded by it;
enfolded in it; listening to it in the burst of raucous generous shouting, hand clapping, dustbin rattling, whistle blowing and yes… hand bell ringing. “Ask not for whom the bell tolls?” It tolls
for our frail, obdurate, resilient, vulnerable, perverse and angelic species. It tolls for the totality, complexity and contradictory nature of what it is to be a human person! Part ape; part god. Was ever there such a thing to emerge blinking and unexpected into the daylight of life and living. Mourn; that we must. Celebrate and wonder; that we must, too.
Context 169, June 2020
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Refl ections on the Covid-19 pandemic
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