Covid-19 lockdown has gifted a lot of people some indescribable quietness and silence. It has roused our intuitive, imaginative and reflective capacity, revealing our care and human nature. Kept lockdown, a new desire to prevail has birthed unimaginable global outburst beyond local possibilities – in private and public quest.

Sadly, the recent spates of burglaries, domestic violence and suicides have exposed our human failings to reveal the animal instincts in humanity. Our craving for privacy and holiday from work now seems hypocritical. Lockdown has shown we are intolerant of solitude. We are a noisy lot. Ironically, we love family but we don’t like being with people we love all of the time!With this lockdown, comes a surge in parental and marital bounding beyond imagination and clear ground for possible divorce. Covid-19 has uncovered our illusory life with its good and bad sides.

A drama took place in my back-yard garden last week.I saw my house staff chasing our flock of domestic free-range chickens into the pen. The hen, which recently hatched a couple of chicks, put up a spirited fight. With the assistance of our gate keeper,it took a feat, but they finally hoarded the entire flock in and locked the pen.

Covid-19 #StayAtHome has brought both the church and world on their knees. It has caged, cowed and pummeled humanity like chicken; all locked into secluded and segregated social units in a quarantined global village.What humans like to do most, moving around and making moves, are today’s denied luxury!Imagine our calendars, program schedules, meeting agendas are not up for usual update, confirmations and negotiations. Even though we are instinctively freedom obsessed, no one is talking about visas or flights booking now when the global garden is raided and the pen is closed?

Covid-19 has stalled our religious observance. Easter came without Galilee triumphant celebration. Ramadan is on without the usual Taraweeh and traditional last ten days of search for power Muslim besiege the mosques. The self-assured, flippant, smooth-talking, designer suit loving preachers have become solo performers in their living rooms.The bearded local sheiks,who relish the unfettered obedience and the choreographed uproar of thousands of unschooled urchins on Fridays,now lick Corona inflicted wounds and bruises.

Owners and builders of empires – religious, social, political, business have lost their on-site, in-store and in-house clouts. Preachers who have lost the art of one-on-one evangelism are compelled to speak without their typical crowd. We are forced to upgrade our living room’s fixtures and fittings having been stripped of our stage performing charms and its aura. Online speeches have invaded the internet. While some are badly presented with superficial contents, especially from one-man living room churches, thankfully, God has incredibly winged His word excellently across the globe, this season.

Hallelujah! Human race is not controlled by the politicians however hard they feign to wield power. Nor our erudite Scientists setting our pace. Our faith teachers, prophets, healing evangelists, bible expositors, entrepreneurial pastors don’t hold the ace. Same goes for millions of start-ups business proprietors and their veteran billionaire conglomerate owners. With just one new virus, humanity has become incoherent, feverish and frantic, emptied of chest-beating self-adulation. With Covid-19, we are all more alike than we are different.

My free ranging local chicken have had the garden to themselves till my staff showed up. We are truly not in charge of our world as we’ve erroneously previously projected. Our God is! One more reason to believe that “in Him we live, move and have our being.”

to be continued…