The Churches are Closed; The Pot Stores are Open. Hallelujah?

Yesterday was a beautiful day in generally empty West Hollywood, California. I had a couple of necessary errands to do, permissible and possible in accord with the quarantine, and I decided to walk the approximately 1.3 miles each way. One errand was to pick up a few groceries at Gelson's. Having done so, I began my walk back to my apartment, a bit over laden as it turned out, such that my journey required a couple of breaks along the way. I found a ledge by a storefront upon which I could perch. As I did I noticed a line of about five or six people in front of me. And pretty quickly after I sat down on the ledge, several people stood in that line until the line had reached me and another several people stood behind me, supposing I was also waiting.

I got up and walked a bit further on, having realized that the wait was for the local pot store.  The traffic on the sidewalk superseded, as you can see, the traffic on the empty road.

Ah incongruity! Or not, depending on what one considers and "essential" service to which the consumer may go and upon whom he or she may depend. The Churches in Los Angeles are closed, shuttered, kaput, at least for the future that could be anywhere from April 12 (the Easter that Mr. Trump made a goal to roars of knowing laughter) to September depending on which expert is correct about the run of the Coronavirus. Happily, there are online and other streaming type methods by which the faithful can be in spiritual communion. For the Catholic, the Eucharist, which is called the "Source and Summit" of our faith, is. . . unavailable.  Good reasons abound.

But in the balancing of interests, is the sale of pot (or alcohol, which I admit to having purchased during this siege), properly, logically, called an "essential service"?To be fair, it is the Archdiocese that closed our Church because of its response to the concerns about public health. And it is the secular government that has decided the pot stores are essential notwithstanding the public health emergency.

But these moments of cognitive dissonance make it hard to trust any authority. It makes it hard to know what is true in all of the pronouncements being lobbed at us figuratively like rockets from Gaza into Israel.

Speaking of the secular end of things. When I was walking into the Gelson's parking lot to purchase my three bags full in order to stand on the happily not very long line to enter the store, I noticed a homeless woman meandering toward the same line. As she walked, she coughed, heartily. She did  join the line, and she was not observing the six feet rule. She departed quickly, and did not cough in the brief time she was there.

I have noted in an internet search, at least according to the Los Angeles Times, that California cannot agree on a strategy regarding the many homeless who are still on the streets in this time of pandemic.

Today I read that while some experts are recommending that those who are healthy ought not wear protective masks; others are saying with equal authority that they should.

Maybe it's time for me to get back on that line. You won't believe it, but I have never tried the stuff. Except, of course, the second hand kind, which wafts when I walk and even when I am in my little condo, from one or more apartments below.