In closing, I thought I’d send you a video from Cristina Rivera, a friend of ours. Cristina, her husband and son live in a Los Angeles suburb. She sent this video Thursday, April 29th from in front of her house. At the same time I received the following note from a friend in the Philippines:

“So suddenly: New York, the “city that never sleeps” is now asleep, all quiet. Paris, the “center of romance” lives in echoes. Rome, the “eternal city” is deserted. Disney is out of magic. London is caged in silence; the Queen speaks to her people from a hidden room. Mecca is empty! Nobody to ‘stone the devil’. The Chinese wall is no longer a fortress. The Great nations are speechless. The developed world suddenly on its knees. Churches, great parks, monuments, stadiums are filled with unfilled spaces. The busiest places at present were hitherto the most dreaded: hospitals and cemeteries. The famous football leagues, the fashion shows, exotic weddings, festivals all lost to memory. Celebrities have run out of celebrations. Our titles, status and privileged positions are stale. With all our boastful citizenship, we cannot step out of our houses. With all our savings in gold and cash, we can only buy food to eat and toilet papers to take care of the waste. We usually went to watch animals in cages, now animals roam our empty streets, watching us in our ‘cages’. With our expensive clothes and shoes, our house clothes and pajamas are the latest fashion. AND despite all these ‘oddities’ the world still goes on; the sun still shines; the birds still sing; our God is still in His Throne. When this long night finally gets over and a new day sets in, let us not forget the lesson of the long night – that the only essential is LIFE, the rest are but dispensable prefixes and suffixes – BUSY EMPTINESS. LET’S LIVE OUR LIFE TO THE FULLEST: TO BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS, AND TO PLEASE GOD OUR CREATOR. THIS WORLD IS NOT OURS. ALL IS VANITY.”