How NOT To Do the Coronavirus Self-Quarantine

Welcome to the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020. Most of our cities, places of work and worship, and public areas are closed. We are constantly being blasted with messages to self-quarantine, aka Just. Stay. Home. How do we respond?

1. Pick up your phone the moment you wake up. Spend all day obsessively scrolling through every news article, Whatsapp forward, social media post about COVID-19, and forward them to everyone you know. If you know everything that's happening, moment by moment, you will feel more in control! Right?

2. Spend all day wallowing in indiscipline. Binge-watch another TV series on Netflix. Forget about all your Lenten commitments and fasts. It's a worldwide state of emergency, you are excused from being a productive, or fruitful member of society. Holiness is for normal days, not such strange ones as the ones we live in. God will understand.

3. Get mad at the bishops for suspending public Masses. They obviously don't care about the state of our souls. If I were in their place, I would make better decisions. Somebody elect me Pope! I'll show those cowards how to take care of a 1.2 billion member Church during a worldwide pandemic.

4. Wallow in self-pity. What an unfair twist of events! I had so many plans for the next few weeks that are cancelled or postponed. This was not how my life was supposed to go! Yet here I am stuck in my home with the Internet and food and water and too much free time to know what to do with. How unlucky I am!*

5. Give full reign to panic and fear. Doomsday is here! The end of the world is nigh. Never before has the world been in lockdown! I was right - everything really IS terrible and bad and scary and hopeless! Even if the world doesn't end, a global recession is coming! Unemployment and poverty and homelessness is going to increase! Is God REALLY in control? Doesn't look like it.

6. Go into conspiracy or blame or extreme religious theory mode. This whole coronavirus thing is a hoax created by the sellers of face masks and sanitizers to make a profit. Or it is a punishment by God for our irreligious behaviour. He's angry so He's unleashing plagues like in the Old Testament. But the blood of the lamb is the only vaccine I need! My family and I are safe, nothing will happen to us because we trust in God (unlike those sinners out there who have been infected). If only the world will repent, the coronavirus will end.

7. Ignore this whole coronavirus nonsense and party on. Unexpected holidays? Perfect time to get the gang together, go on a family outing, get some shopping done, visit some old friends, hit the bars. People are just exaggerating the danger. I'm going to be fine. They can't really expect me to stay at home for weeks on end, can they? That's probably fake news.

8. Go into selfish survivor mode. Stockpiling is the only sensible thing to do! There's a pandemic, I'm sure that basic necessities are going to somehow disappear any moment now. BUY ALL THE STUFF! Who cares about the rest of the world? It's each man for himself!

9. Go into fallacious hyper-spiritual blind faith mode. I am a Christian, and I refuse to live in fear! So I will go about my daily life as normal trusting that God will keep me safe. There is no way that going to MASS could be dangerous to anyone. Anyway, which is more important - the body or the soul? Isn't God more powerful than a mere virus? If I really believe that, there is no need to self-quarantine.

Which of these are you struggling with? Which ones have you seen other people doing, and are driving you crazy?

*I assume the people REALLY struggling are not here reading my blog post. 

Coming Soon: How To Be Holy and Happy During the Coronavirus Quarantine