COVID-19 Is This Generation’s 9/11

By Vinnie MacIsaac

The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon forever changed Millennials, collectively. Whatever they would have become before 9/11 changed as they were just coming of age when they saw those infamous images of planes flying into the World Trade Center.

I am not a Millennial, but rather, a late Gen-Xer. However, that horrific day and those memories are as forever burned into my mind just as the shooting of JFK is likely burned into my grandparent’s minds, and the shooting of Reagan into my parent’s minds. That said, for Millennials, 9/11 formed their minds in different ways than they were headed before the massive – shifting event. For them, there has never been a time that their nation has not been at war. They lost trust in their parents’ generation, who responded to threat with, often blind Patriotism, and Islamophobia, and they grew up in a world of intense security protocols and procedures like no generation before them. It produced, in them, an odd hybrid of acceptance of high security and technology, and a type of patriotism that is suspicious of exclusion.

Eleni Towns,  a researcher at the Center for American Progress, assesses it this way:

 “Millennials are patriotic and believe in America’s institutions and the democratic process, which demands civic participation and the ability of free speech, even against leadership. The generation is also more tolerant and welcoming of different people and more eager to engage in the world beyond our borders.” [i]

While often, unfairly, labeled lazy, President Obama explains their experience in the US Military as noble, hardworking, and productive this way;

“[They became] Young captains, sergeants, lieutenants, they’ve assumed responsibilities reserved for more senior commanders and remind us that in an era when so many other institutions have shirked their obligations, the men and women of the United States military welcome responsibility,”[ii]

While there is much I could say about this fascinating group, I have come to admire, the bottom line of their development as an ‘age grouping’ was arrested by the tragic events of 9/11, and life, as they had known it, had stopped and changed direction, thus, changing them also forever.

If this immensely horrific event, happening in the midst of the coming of age moment, rocked the development of Millennials in such unforeseen and unplanned ways, then that leaves me to wonder in what ways will COVID-19 now alter the course of Gen Z[iii] and Alpha[iv]?

Their lives have been disrupted, and the disruption is not a minor one, but rather one that will last for years or even decades. They have lost a school year and just been sent home. Some have online classes, others mere pre-packaged homework, and still others nothing to aid them in studies. They are a highly social grouping that has had to be systematically isolated, through social distancing, to help stop the spread of this disease. And while it is true that they are the YouTube/Snapchat/Instagram generation, nothing can really, ever, replace human contact; suddenly and almost without any warning we ushered them off to a world where they have gone from reduced groupings of 250, to 50, to 10, to homebound, all within one week,  with no tangible end in sight! You just can’t do that to impressionable children and not leave social scars.

 Have we considered the long-term impact on our children of seeing empty grocery stores and full-grown, average, citizens walking about in homemade hazmat suits? It must be terrorizing to see these images, especially for Generation Alpha who are all still in the, very impressionable, under 10 years of age! Most of them saw this first hand, but even if sheltered, we are talking about a group of kids whose screens are more native to them than paper! They are the first generation entirely born within the 21st century and we know that by 2025 will account for 2 billion of the world’s population[v] and yet no matter where they live,  on the whole Globe, they will all share one thing in common: COVID-19’s mass breakout, the hysteria, and misinformation that reigned, in its wake.  Too often, their parents are more concerned about the disruption in “life as usual” than the impact it is making on their children. Meaning to or not, I suggest, we have built a global tribe of peoples who will grow up on all four corners of the globe and all share this terrifying event as one large collective memory that will resonate from China to France, Germany to Mexico, from Canada to New York City.

It is greater and more defining than the shootings of JFK, Reagan or even 9/11 because it is, for the first time, a global marker in time; one of a shared moment of terror they all experienced together. While Millennials, collectively, in America will forever recall planes flying into buildings, their children will recall a real-life, dystopian disease ravaging the whole world, and was coming for them, one nation at time, in what, to them, will appear like all in one mere week, forever changing their world. They literally lived a series of James Dashner fictional novel like events!

It was day 4 of being out of school. My son, seven years old, was walking our dog, Oreo, in the early evening. We live close to his, now closed, school and as we were walking on the grass heading towards the sidewalk he spotted a classmate, also walking her dog, with her parent. They began to wave and shout greetings as all kids who miss each other would. When, suddenly, the little girl’s mother shouted, “Who is that? Stop! Don’t go near them,” and she took her daughter, and their dog, across the street and ignored us, as if we did not exist. There was no observing of the 6-foot social distancing protocol; there was just pure fear being taught to youth, not with discussion, but with unexplained action. As we walked home Jose’ asked me, “Dad, what is going on? Why did they act that way? I miss my friends, why can’t we say hi from the other side of the road, even?” We went home and washed our hands and I did my best to explain this “Brave New World.”[vi]

What You Can Do:

• Be honest when you talk to your children

• Be accurate when you talk to your children

• Discuss with them the ways the world is and has changed

• Get out of denial

• Stop living in survival mode. Get over your own drama. Your children need you right now

• Beware this will have a lasting impact, not just on you, but your child

• Listen to their fear and concerns and stop trying to refocus them. They need to express their fear as a part of processing it

• Pray with them

• Model good faith

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Footnotes. 

[i] Eleni Towns, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/news/2011/09/08/10363/the-911-generation/

[ii] https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/0909/How-9-11-has-shaped-a-generation-of-Americans

[iii] Those born in the mid-’90s to late 2010s

[iv] Those born in the mid-2010s to late 2020s

[v] https://interestingengineering.com/generation-alpha-the-children-of-the-millennial

[vi] Brave New World is a classic dystopian novel by famed English author Aldous Huxley

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The End Of The World As We Know It

By Pastor Vinnie MacIsaac

The 80’s Pop band, R.E.M.,  sang, “ It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.”[i] And that lyric has been stuck in my head since the Coronavirus (COVID-19) story broke. Now, I don’t know when you are reading this, but I wrote this on Sunday, March 15^th, 4 days before my 50^th birthday[ii]. But, what I do know is that this blog will be read over and over into the future because it is not the end of the world… Yet.

Ironically 80’s Pop band R.E.M. also sang, “That’s me in the corner. That’s me in the spotlight. Losing my religion. Trying to keep up with you.”[iii] And that is what some people are doing, they are losing their religion, in so many ways. Some are paralyzed by fear. Some really fear this could be the end of the world. And frankly, as I watch whole nations come to their knees and go into lockdown mode I really can’t blame them for that fear. Others are all in… for themselves! Seriously, what is it with the toilet paper hoarding!!! Others are walking around in self-made hazmat suits made from rubber gloves, a coat, and facemasks. And even worse, others dove off the stupid, and reckless cliff, of believing it is all a conspiracy theory or some kind of political game one side is playing with the other. This line of reason perhaps bothers me the most. Because it is careless, and people buying into this point of view are putting real lives at risk! I just want to scream at them to “shut up before they get someone they know killed!” Here’s a clue, if your political bias starts putting people at risk, it is not your political side but you who are unhinged! Lastly, there are those who use this as an excuse to be a racist.[iv] No, this is not a Chinese or Asian disease, it is a human global disease! One, on-air, TV Morning News show actually had the gall to demand an apology from China![v]

Here is my point, while it is not the end of the world, it is terrifying. And the way people are responding right now, as I write this, is exactly the way they will respond when the world really does come to the end crisis before Jesus returns. STOP… and evaluate your response. Jesus is calling you to use this moment to check yourself. And ask, if this is how I act now, how will I deal with the grand end of the world events painted in Matthew 24, Luke 21, and the books of Daniel and Revelation?  Just as a high fever is a serious sign of COVID-19, a high unhinged emotional fever is a sign of a spiritual virus. Jesus is giving you this chance to turn to Him and learn to overcome. Remember, the Apostle Paul says that those who can’t control their outbursts, use hate, and are selfish, are in serious danger of by-passing the Kingdom, but those who have love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness are living in the Spirit.[vi]

God is calling you to a Non-Anxious Presence. What is a non-anxious presence? It is living in the Christian reality that God is sovereign. He is King. Even more so, He is God and accepting we are not. And if we are not God we don’t need to control everything, understand everything, and or even to ascribe blame to everything because God’s got it, and how He ultimately deals with it, is His. The serenity prayer describes a non-anxious presence in action this way:

“God, grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time,

enjoying one moment at a time;

accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;

taking, as Jesus did,

this sinful world as it is,

not as I would have it;

trusting that You will make all things right

if I surrender to Your will;

so that I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.”[vii]

Won’t you take a moment and re-pray it? I mean it. Read it again, pray it. Bookmark this page. If you’re a Christian, understand, this world is going to go literally nuts before it ends. But, you are not called to go nuts with it! You are called to be a light in the darkness of madness and to do that, God needs you in control. And the only way you can be in control when the “sky is falling” is to trust God and to submit to his ability to run the world and your life better than you can.

The Apostle Paul makes this process clear, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”[viii]

It’s the end of the world as we know it… The world is changing. It is winding down. When is the final end? I don’t know, but we are not quite there yet. But when it is really is the end of the world, I don’t want to you to feel fine, I want you to feel faith because you walk in a non-anxious presence that Jesus has called you to. Jesus died with the words, ”Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Can’t you put this and every crisis you face into the loving hands of your Father in Heaven? Did not the death and resurrection of Jesus teach you that your Heavenly Father can make you rise up from anything that touches you? Put yourself in His hands.

When it is the end of the world as we know it, I will feel faith! What about you? Know in whom you believe.

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FOOTNOTES:

[i] https://youtu.be/-s97_bBGobQ

[ii] Fine, now you know I am old. LOL

[iii] https://youtu.be/xwtdhWltSIg

[iv] Such people are always racist but this is their chance to do it without being called out.

[v] https://youtu.be/JbK_0gL1Jh0

[vi] Galatians 5:19-22

[vii] Reinhold Niebuhr

[viii] Philippians 4:6-7

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