Well, what a truly bizarre year. The streets look like ghost towns, homeschooling is in, sports are canceled, everyone is watching a show about a gay polygamist tiger breeder (who was accused of murder-for-hire or something? I don’t know, we aren’t that far in yet), and I washed our oranges.
Oh, and it’s only March.
I guess we also moved across the country at the beginning of the year, so that was fun. As it turns out, West Virginia is a little different than Seattle. Who’d have thought?
Anyway, I want to bridge a seemingly strange gap here, and that’s the corona craziness of the past month and the equally crazy show that’s become popular over the last week, Tiger King.
The health crisis we’re currently facing is frightening for the exact same reason Tiger King is entertaining.
Let me explain…
Tiger King is entertaining because it’s a show about people who are more broken than we are. Because they are more broken than we are, they find false comfort and fulfillment in things more extreme than we do. When you boil it all down, that’s what it is. We are all a little broken, and so we all have a natural inclination towards little things that we use to our brokenness. Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, and the rest are real-life caricatures whose coping mechanisms are on a scope that is wildly entertaining — but they are just that. Coping mechanisms. False comforts. Means of fulfillment. And we all have those.
Which brings us to COVID-19.
The current pandemic has caused us, as a society, to confront many of our own false comforts. We have to change our diets. We have to change our daily routines. It’s harder to find entertainment. It’s harder to busy ourselves. Our independence and liberty have been put in check. Our sense of security is found wanting. All of the little ways that we cope with existence — broken people living in a broken world — are exposed as fleeting.
I think the takeaway from a show like Tiger King is that we’re all in need of a source of unconditional love, security, purpose, and hope. The takeaway from COVID-19 is no different. Life is never as stable as we think it is, and sometimes it takes a worldwide crisis to awaken us to that reality. There’s only one foundation that is never shaken, He has a name.
This essay was re-posted with permission from Andrew Haack’s blog. Andrew is a spirit-filled sage of great wisdom and a world-renown purveyor of good news and bad jokes. You can find his work on his blog or follow him on Twitter!
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