Parent of Governance Category
Source: The New Yorker By Paul Elie In the time of the coronavirus, the symbolic motifs of religion have turned literal. Lent, the forty-day season of preparation for Easter, is usually a time of symbolic deprivation: giving up meat on Fridays, giving up chocolate, giving up unkindness, giving up carbon. This year—Lent began on February 26th—the coronavirus has demanded quite literal deprivation: no going out, no eating out, no shopping, no seeing friends. For too many people, it has brought the pain of job loss, illness, and death. Ambulance sirens ring out constantly in the otherwise empty streets of New York…