The next pandemic

We are long overdue for a major pandemic along the lines of the Spanish flu of 1919, which killed 50 million people worldwide.

Having little children makes me constantly aware of the fragility of life, something I just didn't think about when I was 20 years old but now think about most days. The threat of influenza is one of the things I'm aware of, among other possibilities.

This piece in today's Herald talks about responding to pandemics, and is what started me on the current train of thought. Not something we enjoy contemplating. It put me in mind of Ecclesiastes 7.

Eccl. 7:1 A good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death than the day of birth.
2 It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
3 Sorrow is better than laughter,
for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
5 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise
than to hear the song of fools.
6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
so is the laughter of the fools;
this also is vanity.

Earthly calamities and the associated mourning are, of course, just a foreshadowing of eternal judgement, which could easily come upon us before the avian influenza does. Whether for that reason or for another, I find I spend even more time thinking about coming judgement than I do about coming diseases.