I could have ripped off a Harry Chapin tune and entitle this entry Sunday Morning Sunshine, but I am not sure where I will be heading, so Sunshine might have been misleading.

I have always been a big fan of sci-fi movies and books. I recently re-bought the Isaac Asimov Foundation trilogy for some of my summer reading. I will also re-read Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451.

Thinking about the future, about what will be has always attracted us. We make plans for our future. We go to school for our future. We diet and exercise to ensure that we have a future.

Last summer I was planning my future when I bought tickets for London and Ireland. I should be in London right now, probably not blogging. Sorry about that.

Instead, I am checking on today’s numbers to see if Florida has reacted at all to the governor’s breaking us out of lockdown.

The last two months have been like a few sci-fi movies I have seen over the years. On a trip to Disney, Eileen and I went to the movies on a rainy day. We saw a movie called Blindness. The Earth was affected by an epidemic of blindness.

It sounded far fetched and outlandish but still made an interesting plot for a movie.

Fast forward, and here we are with our own epidemic.

The similarities between life and fiction can be startling at times.

In the movie, chaos erupted as you might expect in a world suddenly gone blind.

Our current reality, despite all the calls for “We are stronger together,” and some such words of hope seems to be fraying on the edges.

We have seen armed rebels who despise the Michigan governor for continuing their lockdown besiege the state capital building. In Wisconsin, their highest court overthrew the lockdown order, and people are back at bars elbow to elbow.

While there are, of course, legitimate reasons to want to open up our country again, these decisions seem more concerned with politics than with safety and the economy.

Many states have decided to remove lockdown restrictions, and let’s hope we don’t see a rise in the number of infections and deaths. It hasn’t been easy staying at home and wondering if your family will be ok. It hasn’t been easy going through all the protocols of sanitizing and scrubbing your hands and looking oddly at people who get too close to you.

I was at the doctor’s office Friday for a monthly IVIG treatment to boost my immune system, and I almost took an elderly woman’s head off because she almost backed up into me. I didn’t, but it bothered me that it bothered me.

It also had me thinking about the future.

It’s doubtful that I will get to London before next year, maybe I won’t even get their next year.

It’s doubtful that we are “stronger together.” I am filled with angst about our future as a country. There is so much division, and when politicians prey on prejudice and hatred, well, it sounds dreadfully familiar.

Today is Sunday, and on a normal Sunday morning, millions of Americans would be attending some type of religious service.

Catholics would be going to mass. I will probably listen to a radio broadcast of mass from  Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in a few minutes. More important than praying for a quick cure for this dreaded Caronavirus, I will be praying for a cure for our hatred, a cure for our division, a cure that will restore “UNITY” to the UNITED States Of America.

Life’s experiences should provide lessons, and we have learned so much due to this experience with the virus. I think we should all try to think about what we have learned, and maybe the future will be a better place to be.