Rapt

Here it is: the picture of rapt. They were sitting there smelling the air and hoping for a crumb of sausage off a slice of pizza. They were standing at attention- eyes glued, totally focused on the possibility of a tidbit. I invited them to come outside, stood at the door and waited. Nothing. They never even looked my way. They didn’t flinch or lose sight of the thing that they were intensely interested in. Funny thing is, they just finished eating their meal. I don’t think it was hunger that caught them up.

Rapt is defined by Merriam Webster as lifted up and carried away, transported with emotion, enraptured, wholly absorbed, engrossed.

Rapt developed from the Latin raptus, meaning to “seize, carry off.” So imagine something so interesting that it seizes your attention and carries you off to another world. In fact, rapt is related to the word rapture, which is an experience of extreme, other-worldly happiness. So do your teacher a favor and give her your rapt attention during class.

What has everyone’s rapt attention right now? COVID-19 pandemic, the first broad spread communicable disease in 100 years to threaten our country. We have had our crisis moments over the last century, but none that bring the levels of danger that this virus does. We have the triple threat: health risks- that need to be stratified, economic risks- some folks losing their livelihood and  ability to buy basic necessities of life and the personal liberties risk- sick and vulnerable need to be quarantined, but when you extend this to the well and low risk- it could be considered tyranny of the government and a threat to our constitutional rights.

As we watch raptly, we will make up our own minds about where the middle road and best course is. We are hearing citizens chant in open protests- Phase 1 by May 1.  Sounds good to me.

We are all adults. We know our situations and understand the risks. Releasing prisoners is a bigger risk to me than getting back to business with masks and avoiding germs. I have been a germ avoider all my life. I haven’t had the flu and haven’t had a flu shot in 5 years. I haven’t been sick because I know how to wash my hands and limit my public contact, keep my hands off my face/mouth/ mucous membranes and clean up often. I am sorry for those who are victims, but in a way, we all have been the victims of this situation.

The true responsibility lies with China and The WHO. First, China has no morality. They knowingly threatened the doctors who were trying to warn the world, knowingly stopped travel within their country but allowed Wuhan residents to travel throughout the world, and knowingly kept all scientists out of the country who offered help. This was probably a lab accident, covered up and allowed to infect the entire world. The Chinese manipulated or were in cahoots with the World Health Organization (WHO) to keep saying there was no human to human transfer in January when they knew in December or earlier that this was not true.

As Senator Lindsey Graham said, China is the world’s #1 exporter of pandemics. This is 3 now. They need to be held accountable.

The message was posted on January 14, and said there was “no clear evidence” that the coronavirus beginning to sweep Wuhan, China, was capable of spreading directly between humans.

In the days that followed the tweet, it became clear that human-to-human transmission was possible and had occurred.

I hope the American citizens get behind the movement to bring our manufacturing back to the US ( we need to make our own drugs- not farm them out to third world and communist countries who will not send them to us if they need them more or can leverage fear), remove every Confucious Institute in America ( propaganda and spy machine of the communist government infecting our universities and public schools for a fee they pay to be there), charge China for this mayhem- require them to forgive all our “trillions of debt to them” and start fresh on our own.

Some people say, “we are all in the same boat”, but that’s not true. We are all in the same storm, but some people have boats that are well stocked and floating. Others have a leak- no money coming in and are in danger of collapsing.

What we focus on is what we change. I hope we change this soon!