Hello friends. It’s been two full weeks since my home state of Georgia began the delicate process of returning people to work. In the relatively small county where I live (~24,000 people), we’ve been blessed to have had only thirty-four documented Covid-19 cases and just one death. I believe those low numbers are due in large part to our predominately rural existence. Most of us live on multi-acre properties and many of us can’t even see our closest neighbors. We also tend to be more self-sufficient than the average city dweller, with our wells, gardens, greenhouses, chickens, cows, goats, etc.
This stands in stark contrast to our large cities, where people are stacked on top of each other like so much firewood and everyone is critically dependent on a wide range of public and private services to survive. As a one-time city dweller myself, I can tell you that I could never go back, and especially not now. I believe that the coronavirus pandemic has changed us forever, and we will never return to the world as we knew it just three short months ago.
In my book, Restoration, I envision a future world plagued by war, famine, and pandemic, and I predict a dire decline in our population. I also predict that the survivors will go to any length to live another day, even at the cost of their ethics, morals, and virtually everything else that makes us human. It is my sincerest hope and prayer that those predictions prove false and, instead, we emerge from this crisis as a better version of ourselves. I hope that we all find ourselves stepping out into our brave new world with more kindness in our hearts, more patience and tolerance for one another, and a deep-seated desire to make the world a better place in whatever ways we can–big or small.
Be safe, stay healthy, and live boldly my friends!
-Dan