Q: " Can you share some additional process insights into the difficulties created by the pandemic? "

Recently, I called my favorite take-out restaurant to only one of their famous steak sandwiches, only to be told they are out of steak. I called another restaurant, only to be told they are out of Coca Cola, one of my favorite drinks. I had hardly hung up, when a friend, a geologist working in the field, called and told me he would be stuck for another month in a village out in the middle of nowhere, all air service having been canceled. These are just three examples of countless frustrations we have encountered as a consequence of the pandemic. But why? Why does the pandemic frustrate us so? Why cannot one simple say, "I am happy as a lark. I'm alive, surviving, still walking and talking, and that's enough for me”? It is a common myth that Darwin's is the only theory of evolution. Whitehead offered an alternative approach whereby the goal is more than mere survival. Rather he argued the trend has always been upward. First, there were relatively simple organisms, then tame more complex ones. Now, the more complex the organism, the more sensitive it is, and the more sensitive, it is, the more vulnerable it becomes. We pride ourselves in being at the top of the pile, the Boss of the planet, in charge of all the other organisms. But every entity has some real degree of free will and is therefore impossible to fully control. Even a ruthless dictator is at the mercy of his subjects, has to make adjustments for changes in their behavior, can even be overthrown. Look at it this way: If the infrastructure of our communication's network went down, it would be a major disaster for us, far less so for our family pets, and far less than that for a simple organism such as the coronavirus. The pandemic is a painful awakening to our vulnerability, to the fact that being the most complex means we are the most fragile on the planet. The Bible says that “man does not live by bread alone” (Math.. 4:4, Deut. 8:3). In the process concept of evolution, these verses are given new meaning and emphasis/ We live to eat, as much as we eat to live, so to speak. As Whitehead put it, our goal is to live, live well and live better.” After all, if mere survival we our goal, we'd be content still living in a cave our in a jail cell, with its three hots and a cot. No we want to make life better, richer. So when the products we identify as better living are absent from the stores, we are bound to feel frustrated. We are hard-wired to do so. The pandemic has seriously interrupted the course of our evolutionary development. Now, I'm not saying we are all self-centered hedonists. Absolute egotism is an impossibility in process theology. Even if you are worried about yourself, you are being altruistic, worrying about that other person you may become. The social nature of reality, the fact we are all interconnected, means you cannot be happy unless your brother is happy. This also means you cannot be safe unless your brother is safe. That is what is underlying the current protests against police brutality. In process, egotism and altruism are one. So no matter how well off we may me, we cannot escape sharing in the pain of others.