January is almost over and we have been to Miramar Beach to spend time with our family…and we have had the unwelcome visit of Omicron. Christmas was a little over a month ago. During the first month of 2022…I have learned how to play the card game…Golf. I have even, won, one two or three games. Cards are a new thing…and I welcome new things and experiences. I read a posting of a local Doctor in our area who estimated that Omicron has infected 20 – 25% of the people in our County. He went on to tell us that 45 of our fellow Jackson County residents have died of Covid since the first of the year. Whether we like it or not and whether we accept it or not…we are in a new world and we have entered our third year in this new world.

My geese are still on Campus Lake. I think that I am a bit like the character Tony Soprano in the stellar HBO television show…The Sopranos…in comparison to the ducks that were swimming in his swimming pool in the first episode of the series. My geese seem perfectly content and at peace with the blowing snow and the frigid temperatures. They honk with gusto at their neighbors…the ducks…and the ducks answer back with a hearty…quack… It has been said on numerous occasions that Omicron is less virulent than the other Covid Variants…45 persons have died of it in Jackson County.

A New World means a new way of interacting in our social milieu. When you contract Omicron…bells do not ring…drums do not peel their tympanic beat…warning signs do not flash Warning…Warning…Warning… You simply get sick with what appears to be a cold…and then perhaps the flu…and then a visit to the Emergency Room…and then a hospital bed in the Intensive Care Unit…and the then Intubation…and then death…and the world never misses a beat accept for your loved ones who experience such tragic loss…

We can not fit the construct of our Old World…with the realities of our New World. Cautious reflection is the watchwords of the 2020s… No one is coming to wave a magic wand and make it all disappear. We must understand that our lives on Earth are a constant challenge and a constant blessing…and we can not have one without the other. I encountered an old gentleman this morning…probably my age…who extolled that, ‘They have been lying to us about Global Warming,’ as he smiled and walked to his car. I considered that his comments exemplify how difficult it is to first acknowledge and then accept change… If it is bitterly cold…one day…Global Warming must be a lie… If I do not become ill with Omicron when I spend a night out eating and drinking one day…I surely will not contract the illness the next day… If not wearing a face mask has served me well for the first two years of our Pandemic…it will certainly see me through the remaining Covid Time…

We are all going to experience the Grim Reaper…whether we are Republicans or Democrats or Independents. If we believe the primary Christian Doctrine of life after death…do we think that this will not be a major change in our existence and perception of reality?