How ironic that with COVID-19 our chance to seek the common good is also a call to have no goods in common, but instead to fear and distrust one another. And more fear and distrust is the last thing America needs. We already have quite enough irate political polarization and pathetic personal loneliness.

On a bright, warm Wyoming day a week or so ago, the dog and I were on our way up Sinks Canyon via the Middle Fork Trail. For the most part we were alone, but did pass a few other hikers and dogs, greeting one and all — or actually not all.

One woman we passed wasn’t interested in greeting anyone. As we approached she sidled well off the trail and stared over her mask with an unmistakable look of distrust.

It was kind of jarring, but not at all unique. In biblical times, approaching lepers had to cover their mouths and identify themselves by calling out, “Unclean! Unclean!” (Leviticus 13:45). Today the approaching healthy cover their mouths and identify others as “Unclean! Unclean!”

The Prince of Pompadoodle

It makes me think of a poem by “Pogo” cartoonist Walt Kelly called “The Prince of Pompadoodle.”

The Prince of Pompadoodle
Lived behind a castle wall.
Behind a moat, behind a guard
Of twenty soldiers tall.

The Prince of Pompadoodle
Was the safest man alive.
Each day he wrote how long he’d lived
And multiplied by five.

The Prince of Pompadoodle
Would survive, he did decide.
Five times as long as he had been
Alive before he died.

Comfortable, prosperous, and above all safe, the prince lived a peaceful life among friends and retainers. All was good and all would certainly get even better, but then …

The Prince of Pompadoodle
Called in the castle sage
For his advice in this pursuit
Of long and fulsome age.

The Prince of Pompadoodle
Heard in horror from his friend
That somewhere in the palace
Was a cur who’d seek his end!

The Prince of Pompadoodle
Scarce could credit a belief
His years might soon be sneaked away
By some ungrateful thief.

Life, the prince suddenly discovered, is not certain. Others can be a threat. They can murder us. They can act irresponsibly and we die. They can spread fatal diseases.

As you may have noticed, there’s nothing new here. Thus it has been since we left Eden. But, for safety’s sake, something surely must be done. And so…

The Prince of Pompadoodle
Sent his every friend away
And sat alone, safe, locked alive,
To count another day.

The Prince of Pompadoodle
May hoard each empty hour,
But none can know; no word comes from
The silent stony tower. 

A Call for Prudence … and Love

The great COVID nightmare at this point is not deaths. It’s a world even more polarized and distrustful than it was four months ago. We’re moving back to a technologically sophisticated state of nature where, as Mr. Hobbes put it in 1651, life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Both the “keep-locked-down-wear-a-mask” people and the “enough-already” people need to keep this in mind.

None of us wants to see people die from COVID-19 or from the lockdown’s secondary pathologies of despair and suicide. None of us wants more unemployment, more poverty, or mass small business bankruptcies. All of us want to see health and human flourishing return to the world as soon as possible. That being the case, we can all stop the stupid accusations that only add to the fear and distrust. Leave that to the politicians, the media, and the people who write political direct mail letters who seem to believe it’s their job.

COVID-19 — like the illnesses we face every winter — calls for prudence. Given the potential risks and the potential rewards what should be done next? Mask or no mask? Hike with others or scurry off the trail to keep a “safe” distance? Vacation or no vacation? Go out to eat or avoid restaurants like… well, like the plague? We have to decide and we’re going to disagree and we’re going to make mistakes.

Aristotle noted, “Wisdom or intelligence and prudence are intellectual,” and thus open to debate and disagreement. Then he added, “liberality and temperance are moral virtues.” Even the pagan philosopher could see that, as fellow humans, we owe each other kindness, toleration, and room to disagree — a right to be wrong.

St. Paul put it more precisely: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Colossians 3:12-14).

As the world continues to fragment into distrustful individuals, Christians can love. In doing so we can get on with the real and important healing: healing from the fear of others, the disdain for others, the distrust of others, and from the lonely exile that is too common among our Prince of Pompadoodle neighbors.

Dr. James Tonkowich, a senior contributor to The Stream, is a freelance writer, speaker and commentator on spirituality, religion and public life. He is the author of The Liberty Threat: The Attack on Religious Freedom in America Today and Pears, Grapes, and Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life. Jim serves as Director of Distance Learning at Wyoming Catholic College and is host of the college’s weekly podcast, “The After Dinner Scholar.”