Pause or Reset Revisited – The Need to Get ‘Sick’

Written by Ps Zheng Haoren

Eight months have quickly gone by since I penned “Pause or Reset” in WIS on 12 Apr 2020.  The following questions were posed then:

“Has reality sunk in? Is this a Pause? Or has the Reset button been activated? I believe it is the latter. Our Heavenly Father has allowed Covid-19 to become a worldwide pandemic and at an unprecedented speed. He knows what is best for mankind. Father knows best. Our lifestyles, values, and attitudes need to be reviewed. How should we respond? Should we maintain the attitude of riding through this pandemic and reverting to our usual intense lifestyles again?”

Well, as a nation, we are on course to Phase 3 of the Circuit Breaker Reopening.  Everybody is looking forward. Local tourism is picking up. Families are going on staycations. Small group in-person meetings are gaining traction. Coffee shops and food courts are filling up. Workers are returning to workplaces more regularly and in increasing numbers. And traffic on the roads is getting heavier.

Over the past weekend, I saw many young children laughing away in glee at a neighbourhood playground as they chased one another or get swung around on mini merry-go-rounds by their daddies. At a void deck, eight kids were enjoying ‘limited’ soccer with their masks below their chins. A loose ball had to come my way… I tapped it back to them with, “Hey kids, not more than 5 ” At the park connector, it was filled with the young and old – jogging, walking, or just strolling and conversing. How sweet and nice! Thank God for people and life!

Poems and short stories are written about people learning to smile again in 2020; about grown-up children calling their mums to ask how they are doing in this pandemic; about the earth beginning to breathe again when industries slowed down and air-sea leisure travel ground to a halt; about wild life beginning to flourish again; about many who started dancing, baking, singing, painting; and especially about people being kinder to one another!

A little child asked, “Why did it take a virus to bring people back together? And Daddy replied, “Well, sometimes you’ve got to get sick my boy, before you start feeling better.” Yes, it took a virus to change our old, unfruitful habits.

The question now is – Do we prefer the world we have found at the end of this year or do we still prefer the world we had left behind?