The late E.P. Thompson, the brilliant British historian, who had little patience for dogma and cant, once wrote, “We need now to learn what religions have always taught: how to achieve the wisdom, the largeness of heart, the strength of character to build the human alternative in the midst of ongoing catastrophe.”
Thompson didn’t have a pandemic in mind when he wrote these words, but they nevertheless speak to us in this time of pandemic. The key phrase is: “build the human alternative in the midst of ongoing catastrophe.” Not a word about stoically carrying the cross or enduring the undurable.
