Readers views: Coronavirus concerns + respectful funerals
Waking up
Ever since being actively involved in the first Earth day, in my junior year in high school, I’ve been an environmentalist who has felt like the proverbial babe in the wilderness crying out, only to alert the hungry wolves.
In a state with an abundance of hungry wolves, science deniers, and naked king worshipers I realize these words couldn’t fall on any more deaf group of ears. But COVID-19 is a dry run, people.
Some 28 viruses were identified just last year in the melting permafrost.
28 viruses that haven’t seen the light of day since hundreds of thousands of years before man walked the Earth. Our resistance to them is non-existent.
How many of the people that you love will have to die before you realize the world is changing incredibly fast and then start to take responsibility for the role each of us has in being a part of that change?
God helps those who helps themselves.
How much longer are we all going to make him wait?
Chet Travirca
Kiln
Spiritual solution
Here is a spiritual solution.
Clean-up an area where homeless souls are by pressure washing the area where they are located and escort the people to an area to work on their hygiene to better themselves. Some years ago San Diego, California, had a homeless issue and decided to get people off the street and to help make the lives of the people better.
Another spiritual solution: A Texas couple who owned a successful restaurant chain with a food truck feed hundreds of homeless souls and started a training system to encourage the people off the street and create working restaurant professionals.
What can you do to create a spiritual solution to the economic issue? This takes the effort of everyone in a community. Does this scare you? What are you afraid of? A medical professional told me that to reduce disease is to have sanitation and better personal hygiene in the community, wherever one lives.
Working together is where the spiritual solutions are. Work in the spirit of service is worship to God.
Miguel Nicholson
Gulfport
Respectful funeral
In January, I joined the family and friends of Leonard Nederveld in the sad duty of escorting him to his final resting place in the Biloxi National Cemetery.
Leonard, who was 94 at the time of his death, had many accomplishments throughout his life and his family can attest to the love they shared. However, if you had asked Leonard about his life, near the top of the list would have been “Marine.”
As a wounded veteran of Iwo Jima and knowing how Leonard felt, his casket was not only draped with the flag of the U.S., but was also adorned with the Marine Corps flag. Likewise, the car carrying Leonard flew both flags and the doors were decorated with the Marine Corps emblem.
Upon departing the church, Harrison County deputies escorted the procession to Biloxi where about six police vehicles took up the escort allowing the solemn and dignified movement of Leonard and his party to the cemetery.
Most moving of all was that as we progressed on the highways, people, strangers all, stopped to allow a dignified passing. Many exited their cars in a sign of respect. Again in Biloxi, people exited places of business and stood with hands over their hearts or rendering a military salute as Leonard passed even though they did not know him.
On behalf of the family and friends of Leonard, I would like to extend to the Harrison Country Sheriff’s Department, the Biloxi Police Department and to those hundreds of persons along the route, our sincere thanks and gratitude for the honors you have rendered to Leonard and for the dignity with which it was given.
Larry Sullivan
Diamondhead