Dear World: Greetings from Dallas! Since we seem to be top of mind for pretty much everybody on the planet right now, I'd like to share a few facts.
Far-fetched though it might seem, we are not all running through the streets, yodeling in terror and ripping the hair from our scalps.
We are using public transportation, dining in restaurants, sending our kids to school and drinking city water right out of the tap.
We are not unhinged by Ebolaphobia.
Well, most of us aren't. There are exceptions, such as an unidentified caller who left me a voice mail this week. He expressed a kind of grim satisfaction that all his darkest suspicions about secret government plots and conspiracies are finally being proved.
It's too bad I don't know his name, since we might have gotten together for a cup of joe and hashed over lies vs. facts. There's some crazy stuff floating around out there.
Such as: A family of five in Navarro County have all been stricken with the virus! (Hoax, check Snopes.) Presbyterian has six other confirmed cases they're not telling us about! (Presby foolishly compromised its record for strict accuracy early in this crisis, but there's no reason for them to hide confirmed cases at this late date.) The virus was invented in a secret government lab as a form of population control! (Too crazy to merit discussion.) Ebola has "gone airborne" and they don't want us to know because they're afraid we'll panic!
What is this panic "they" fear more than death, contagion, mass graves and bleeding eyeballs? I dunno, but "they're" not doing a very good job of controlling it. Because in my book, panic includes spreading crazy rumors, scaring the bejeezus out of your neighbors and wallowing in bunker-brained xenophobia. Panic is already way, way out of the barn.
One of the best messages I received last week was a suggestion from a worshipper at Wilshire Baptist Church that I review a video of a 20-minute sermon delivered last week by its senior pastor, George Mason.
Since the beginning of this crisis, Mason's calm demeanor has been a powerful antidote to panic, both for his church and for anybody else who can use his message. I wish there was a TV channel playing him in a continuous loop.
"Fear is understandable," Mason told me. "We are made with an instinct for survival. That is God-given, and if you are not a spiritual person, we can just say it's a function of the hypothalamus."
We are also equipped, he pointed out, with a developed cerebral cortex. That allows us to choose reason and good sense, and to care for one another as dearly as we care for ourselves.
"Sometimes, we just need to stop and listen to what we're telling ourselves," he said. "There are values higher than fear and self-preservation."
So don't worry about us. The weather's beautiful--wish you were here!
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Jacquielynn Floyd is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News.
Editorial on 10/21/2014