Johanna Shapiro, PhD
During the past seven months of quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic, I go virtually nowhere other than to visit my doctors and my dentist. My only walking is around our neighborhood. At the end of the street (which is long and meandering), there is a dead-end that provides a vista of hills and a vast, uncluttered sky. When I reach this point, I’ve taken to raising my arms wide and uttering the following prayer: “Protect Your servants. Help your people. Save Your world.” (Since, over the course of history, the Lord’s servants have been a motley crew, I clarify that, at this point in time, I am referring to the essential workers and frontline doctors and nurses battling COVID-19). I say this 3 times, each time separated by a respectful pause (which is inevitably met with silence – but it might be a Divine Silence, which could be full of answers – who knows what anything really means these days?).