Virtual Homage to the Nova Scotia Shooting Victims of April 19,2020

Amidst our constant surveillance and vigilance in protecting ourselves from the ever invisible COVID-19(coronavirus), a tragedy had fallen on Portapique,Nova Scotia and its neighboring towns in this part of the Maritime areas of Canada.

On the early hours of April 19,2020, a lone gunman had gone on an almost 12 hour shooting rampage,mostly random along a stretch of highways and neighboring towns and centering on a rural community–Portapique,Nova Scotia. Total number of victims gunned down so far—18 and may still potentially go up since around a total of 16 crime scenes so far had been identified. Among the deceased was a female Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)officer as well as the gunman.

Overall investigation will obviously take some time to be completed.

In the meantime,ongoing  plans to honor the dead with social distancing in mind are being made. Virtual memorial services are the current norm.

My home province is just next door to the province of Nova Scotia. As a fellow Maritimer, I feel your pain and my heart,thoughts and prayers goes out to everybody there.

I do hope that you will get some degree of closure even though you will be honoring the dead in a much different way because of COVID-19.

Nevertheless, please know, we do care. We are all coming together for all of you and we will all get through this,COVID-19 notwithstanding.

 

Josie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Easter 2020 in this COVID-19 era

For full disclosure,being  Catholic, I observe Holy Week which starts this week,For our Jewish friends, Passover starts  within this week as well.

Dealing with COVID-19 aka coronavirus is quite challenging for everyone.If I were to pin point  Christian religious connections, dealing with this virus is like observing the Way of the Cross, the Crucifixion and observance of Lent and abstinence.

I consider Easter as the time for  the Resurrection of Christ as well as hopefully in due time, liberation from COVID-19 as a religious analogy as well.

Even the observance of Passover is analogous to being locked down in one’s home as the Angel of Death went through Egypt and passed through all male Jewish firstborns because prior precautions had been made.( Eating lamb and unleavened bread and smearing the front door with blood.)

With COVID-19, if we consistently followed all prior sanitary precautions, that virus will hopefully pass over us by as we continue our lockdown and social distancing.

Easter 2020 in this COVID-19 era is special since the essence of Lent and repentance has been observed in someway. Considering that all non-essential services have been temporarily stopped and only essential services are open for our basic needs only drives home the point the ff :

We need to reflect on what our life priorities really are and to not emphasize too much on the frivolities. This would mean  good balancing responsibilities and having periods of leisure.

We cannot afford to procrastinate since we do not know what tomorrow will bring to us which we may not have control anyway.

We go on living our life with purpose day by day which will give us personal fulfillment and not any personal regret.

Even once Easter 2020 passes by, such life principles need to be followed. Lifestyle changes due to social distancing has now changed how we attend church service, much less any incoming Easter egg hunt.

To all my fellow bloggers who observe other religions, may you have a fruitful and blessed coming of days as we all deal with COVID-19.

 

Josie