What crisis reveals

Pandemics are terrible. All crisis is unpleasant. I don’t know of a single person who wants to see a crisis come to them.

And at the same time crisis reveals several things.

Crisis gives us a window into realities that could otherwise be covered up. You don’t have to look to hard to see a multitude of articles ranking how different government officials — both national and state level — are doing in the midst of crisis. These officials’ leadership is what is being focused on.

Crisis also reveals brokenness and broken systems. Crisis doesn’t allow us to ignore problems that already exist, but become bigger when the crisis hits. A short list of broken systems that have become exasperated in this time of crisis include — homelessness, health care, working poor, wages, resistant beliefs, etc. We have to take the rose colored glasses off and deal with these challenges. Not everything was great.

Crisis reveals many things about ourselves too. We have to deal with and cope with crisis. Some people shut down, while others step up. We may learn how introverted or extroverted we really are. We may learn some realities about our work or the organization we work for and with in a time of crisis too. What do they value? What is essential? what kind of adjustments are they willing to make?