Confront reality, face it down and never lose faith that we will prevail in the end

It’s almost two weeks ago now when I was in a supermarket, hardly believing my eyes at the toilet roll madness, when the manager of the store started to chat. He recalled one of his earliest experiences in Belfast of customers rushing in to panic buy during the loyalist workers strike of 1974. With impending power cuts, they lost all sense of reality; but this, he said, pointing to empty shelves in 2020 which had been full of bog roll an hour or two earlier: “I’ve never experienced anything like this.”

Globally, we’ve had 9/11 in the United States and older people remember World Wars and so on and have lived throughout significant crises and change in history.

There have been momentous times in the past which we thought were game changers.

But nothing like this, absolutely nothing.

Like many, I’ve been in reflective mood, about how we face up to things and about what happens in the future. A future, indeed, which thousands of people in Northern Ireland may not see.

We’ve been told what to do physically, washing hands, staying home….

But how do we get through this emotionally?

I remember reading about “The Stockdale Paradox.”

It refers to Admiral James Stockdale, an American pilot in the Vietnam War, held for seven years in a prisoner of war camp and tortured repeatedly. Yet he survived when many others didn’t.

Interviewed by Jim Collins for his book “Good to Great”, Stockdale explained: “I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which in retrospect, I would not trade.”

He was asked, “Who didn’t make it out?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “The optimists.”

“The optimists? I don’t understand,” said the interviewer, now completely confused given what he’d said earlier.

“The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart. This is a very important lesson.”

What he said next has become known as the Stockdale Paradox: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end–-which you can never afford to lose–-with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

So, in the current Coronavirus crisis, we must keep the faith that we will prevail in the end. We don’t know how long it will take.

But facing up to reality is important too; frustratingly too many irresponsible people didn’t “get it” and who’d have thought the Government would have to pass laws to make reckless people stay at home to protect themselves and others.

But here we are.

I noticed some on social media advising us to not watch the news, it’s too depressing. I thought that was such daft advice, particularly as it was posted on Facebook which is flooded with dangerous unchecked rubbish.

Nor, though, do I advocate watching wall to wall news; the advice of local mental health counsellor, Raymond Farrell, is that we should set boundaries about how much news we watch.

I have to pay tribute to many people in the Northern Ireland media who are incredibly professional and responsible in keeping us informed. Most are certainly not scaremongering or sensationalist.

The telling of stories this week by two families were heartbreaking. In one of them, Ruth Burke’s daughter didn’t get to kiss her mum goodbye and she didn’t want her death to become another statistic. “Wise up,” she told people flouting the guidelines.

I found it particularly chilling to read that provisions are in place to store 280 bodies in Northern Ireland to cope with a surge of deaths, and bodies could be stored until burials can be facilitated.

And a respiratory consultant at the Ulster Hospital, Dr Julia Courtney, warned: “It is hard to actually convey just the enormity of the crisis that is looming for the NHS, and so for everyone, in the next few weeks. Huge numbers of people will die and the only thing that

will have any impact on this impending catastrophe is slowing down the spread of this virus.”

This is the reality, and we should face it to support the heroes of the NHS and support the families of those going through hell. And to put pressure on the idiots who still put other people’s lives at risk.

It’s important, too, for the media to challenge those in power. It’s surely clear that the Boris Johnson Government was embarking on a flawed strategy, where the economy was being put ahead of lives and an enquiring, robust media speaking truth to power helped to ensure a change in direction.

And the media is also highlighting the positive way many in the community are responding to help others; as in last week’s front page of the Impartial that “we’re all in this together.”

Everyone is handling the emotions of this crisis in different ways. Humour, of course. I’ve lost count of the number of videos and messages I’ve received, and it’s not being flippant or disrespectful. Rather we cope through humour.

Many are coping by taking comfort in their faith. The story on another page of this paper headlined: “Cathedral empty on Sunday for the first time in 400 years” gives some idea of how different this situation is to anything we’ve ever experienced.

And yet as a Christian, it’s reassuring to see the level of prayer support and services online as well as Facebook posts which remind us of many Bible quotes about hope and taking strength in times of fear. Psalm 27 is described as “a cry for and ultimately a declaration of belief in the greatness of God and trust in the protection he provides.”

People of other faith gain strength, too, and people of no faith are also showing incredible courage.

What I see in society generally are the diverse characteristics, good and bad, of people. On the one side greed, selfishness and a total lack of compassion and empathy for others.

But overwhelmingly, goodness, generosity of spirit and courage.

Maybe, when we get through to the other side of this, we will remember what’s really important. Our planet for a start; I read the following, “Since the lockdown Venice’s canals have become crystal clear. Italy coasts have dolphins coming nearer and nearer. Japan now has deer roaming free in the streets and Thailand the same with monkeys. China has record-breaking pollution cuts. The Earth has already begun showing signs of amazing things that are happening from the absence of human pollution.”

We need to remember who the important people are and stop running things to suit the rich and the greedy. We’ve allowed property owners to profiteer to the point where huge numbers of ordinary people can’t afford a home any more. We’ve allowed people to make money out of our health service and paid managers a fortune while front line workers had to stand in the rain campaigning for a meagre pay increase to make ends meet. And yet these are the very people now out risking their lives to save our loved ones.

We see the greed of certain business people at the top being exposed. Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin desperately wanted to keep his pubs open, but when that failed he told his 40,000 staff to go work at Tesco because they wouldn’t be getting their salaries. Let them eat cake?

There have been some calls for us to remember when this is over that we need to support local businesses, to eat in local restaurants and to remember to repay everyone who has been going through a difficult time. Even our own politicians, after a false start, seem to be realising that there are more important things than flags. (Though not all of them!).

It’s a bit like a computer; sometimes when it’s not working you switch off and start again.

This total slowdown across the world may well be the opportunity to recalibrate and install values of decency and compassion again.

The Czech leader, Vaclav Havel said: “Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.”