New and healing words

 *** The original text in German by Rev. Wache from Tenerife was posted here yesterday. 

I can see the question mark in their faces: „Dera parents, we have just gotten over a lockdown!“ my parents – they don’t live anymore – would say:“ I beg your pardon, What have you gotten over?“ There are words we didn’t even know 6 months ago (– us Germans certainly not all those English terms like lockdown, super-spreader, social distancing, which were adopted untranslated).
There are other words like “digital worship” or “in-person- worship”. I would have had to explain those to my parents: there are worship services, where we are physically present,  in person, and others, where we participate via internet, where all is transmitted digitally and we can follow on our computer screens. “Why”, they would ask and I would reply: “because there was a super-spreader, who did not wear the mandatory face-mask or who ignored  the obligation to self-quarantine after his Corona-test. Not to mention social distancing.
… I would recommend publishing a new dictionary just for new words introduced in these Corona-times. But I also recommend publishing a twin dictionary of old words right along the Corona-dictionary. There are indeed some words that are in danger of falling out of use and out of memory: Words like “grace” and “mercy”, “decency“, or “blessing”. I would even add words like “humbleness“, “humility“, “consideration“. 
New events demand new usage or language. What happens for the first time needs a new name. The spread of the new virus Covid19 is certainly such an event, new and bound to be remembered in history. And yet, I think, in such grace times, like this Corona-crisis, we have even more need of the old words. Maybe we need them as much as the vaccine, so that we can all make it through this crisis? “Grace”, and because of it “Gratitude, if we have been spared by the virus physically. “Mercy” when we care for those who have lost their jobs, in tourism for instance? “Decency”, “Humbleness”, and “Consideration” when we don’t just prioritize our own interests, or our own supposed individual right to be free, but instead contemplate what may be a “blessing” for all? We can only contain this virus together. I keep being amazed at how the Bible can bring all this to the point: „You shall honour God and love your neighbour as yourself (Deuteronomy 6,5/Leviticus 19,18).