Salt of the Earth – Coronavirus and Ordinary People

The coronavirus crisis has turned a spotlight on so called “ordinary” people – the farmers, truck drivers, warehouse workers, deliverymen, and cashiers who support the rest of us.  Those in food production and delivery who so long toiled in anonymity have suddenly been recognized as heroic.

Ordinary people have always, of course, been important to God.  They are the backbone of society, the salt of the earth (Matt. 5: 13).

Ordinary people build our homes and highways, our bridges, skyscrapers, and dams.  They maintain the electrical grid on which our modern lives depend.  Ordinary people make our clothes, remove our garbage, and repair our streets.  They climb down sewers, up cell towers, and into cockpits.

During World War II – a crisis even more daunting than the one facing us now – the great filmmaker, Frank Capra, made the classic “Meet John Doe” [1].  It is the story of an unemployed ballplayer induced to take part in a newspaper circulation stunt.  Inadvertently, John Doe starts a movement of “ordinary” people.

This is an excerpt from a radio address by John Doe.  The sentiment still applies.

“The little punks have always counted because in the long run the character of a country is the sum total of the character of its little punks…Yes, sir, my friends, the meek can only inherit the earth when the John Does start loving their neighbors.  You’d better start right now.  Don’t wait till the game is called on account of darkness!  Wake up, John Doe!  You’re the hope of the world!”

-John Willoughby a/k/a John Doe, “Meet John Doe” [2]

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[1]  Wikipedia, “Meet John Doe”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_John_Doe.

[2]  Scripts, “Meet John Doe”, https://www.scripts.com/script/meet_john_doe_492.

READERS CAN FIND MY VIEWS ON ABUSE AND ABUSE-RELATED ISSUES AT ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse  https://avoicereclaimed.com