I think it was Rahm Emanuel who said once that we should never let a serious crisis go to waste. And I agree with him. In every adversity, there is an opportunity. Lest this should sound exploitative, what he meant was that every crisis is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. And so it has panned out this year.
If you told every GAA or soccer coach in the country that before every training session, every parent would be logging on to testify that their child is symptom free, they would not have believed you. If you were told that we would be taking over the private hospitals, that the amount of traffic would reduce and that most of us could work just as productively from home, people would think you were crazy.
What this year has proven is that there is merit to having faith in the act of the possible. And this merit and this faith is what will sustain us through the remaining months until we can get our lives back together again through vaccination and the creation of a safe society.
There is no doubt that things will never be the same again. Will we stand in crowded places shouting/spitting at each other from six inches? Will we have a tolerance for those who sneeze and cough outside what is now considered the new etiquette? It is hard to believe that a year ago, we were coughing and sneezing our way through worship and then sharing that with the entire community in what was ostensibly a hand of peace.
But there is a price to pay for all of this too. Just like in any race where if you start off too quickly, the sudden change of gear has left a country gasping to keep up.
The role of the State in our lives has never been more evident. Now we gather around TV screens and laptops and radios when our leaders make new pronouncements of what we can or can’t do. In the manner that past generations gathered around the wireless at moments of great import.
But I now look forward with great hope. The year ahead will allow us to regulate this new way of living, to put structure on varying level of caution.
We move forward too with a greater appreciation of those little things in live that we took for granted until they were whipped away from us, and continue to be so. The role of the small business in our areas. Just how lifesaving buying a coffee and a sandwich from them might be. How it may be the difference between job creation and job loss.
We all too have a greater appreciation of just how important a sense of community is. I think of the sense of camaraderie that sports clubs engendered when they used their physicality and organisation to ensure that the elderly and the vulnerable in our villages were looked after. I am reminded of the poem by Galway-resident poet Rye Aker (@RyeAker on twitter ) for the AIB The Toughest campaign when he wrote:
Who knew in December’s sheds steeped in rich scents
of sweat and Deep Heat and wet socks
that muscles honed and shaped to snatch a sliotar
would reach instead for shelves of tins and banks of turf?
That glistening calves primed for racing towards the H at the town end
would stretch up crooked paths where grateful smiles through net curtains
took the ham and bread and Bag for Life of kind words from
those with the village flag on their chests and in their hearts.
And that is how it has been. In the main, we have stood together and did what was necessary for us to get to the stage where a salvation from the restriction was possible. And with schools remaining closed for longer, there are more miles (or fewer kilometres ) to travel yet before we are at that point. We all know what we have to do to enable the most vulnerable in our communities have the opportunity of a vaccine.
To you all, I wish you a healthy New Year and that you create a space in your mind for the hope that will save us.
