The pandemic is not really the problem. There were already too many people in the Rochester region without enough food to eat. There were already too many people lacking housing, clothing, decent jobs. There was already too much racism and too much political discord to address these issues. There were already too many people without enough food to eat, and now there are more.

I already gave regularly to Foodlink, because I am lucky enough to have the resources to do so, and because I have been impressed by Foodlink’s programs. They not only provide emergency food, but they support community gardens, teach classes on preparing healthy foods, and provide mobile produce markets in some of the city’s food deserts.

But mostly I give to our local food bank because it drives me crazy that the supposedly wealthiest country on earth cannot keep its people fed. It drives me crazy that this country cares so little about its lower-income people that we do not wake up every morning with a sense of outrage that many people are waking up to no food. I am fortunate; this has never happened to me, but it is not that big a leap of imagination to realize that it could. If the pandemic disappears tomorrow, people will still be hungry.

I worry just as much about how we feed our emotions. Our national leadership sends us only fear and anger, and expects us to gorge on that every day. Admittedly there have been times when I have done that, especially in the immediate aftermath of the election. I have not much liked the person I was becoming on that diet. I was finally struck by a quote from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that he chose love over hate because he had seen hatred on the face of too many white people, and he did not want to become that face. I do not want to become that face, either. I am trying to be more careful about what I feed my emotions.

I wish I had less stress, but I do not want to return to “normal.” I do not want to return to “normal,” if “normal” is the situation where one percent of the population owns 30% of this nation’s wealth, and the top ten percent own 70% of the wealth. I do not want “normal” where armed white men can attempt to take over a statehouse while the legislature is meeting, while unarmed black men are routinely killed on the flimsiest of excuses. I do not want “normal” with a supposedly healthy economy where vast numbers of workers have no benefits and no guarantee that they will have a job after the current gig is over. A “normal” where even more people had no job at all. I do not want the “normal” filled with abusive, racist, xenophobic people feeling free to attack anyone they please.

I do not know how we could feed only compassion and empathy, caring and support, connection and thoughtfulness. But I do not know how we can go forward without them. Fear too easily turns to anger or despair. The pandemic is not really the problem. A constant diet of fear, anger, and greed is the problem.

Susan Riblett is a scientist and a writer. She is interested in progressive politics, humanity’s interaction with the natural world, and the role of faith in contemporary life.