Staying at home for days on end is not fun. But I’m in a spacious apartment with my wife, not stuffed with a hundred-plus British soldiers into a 15 x 18 ft Black Hole of Calcutta. I’ve missed out on dinner dates at the city’s fabulous restaurants, but I haven’t missed a meal. And I’m more likely to succumb with an audible groan from the COVID-19 puns on my email page than the virus itself.

So yes, it’s been a drag to bounce off the walls these past weeks. But it’s been tolerable. What I remind myself is, for many of us it’s been deadly.

The Coronavirus crisis has highlighted the persistent inequalities in race, wealth and health that exists in the wealthiest nation on earth.

If I was ever in doubt before this pandemic about the threat to democracy our country faces, and my role in supporting the societal struggle to achieve liberty and justice for all, I’ve become clear-eyed as the Eagle on the country’s emblem.

Unfortunately, in response to the crisis, the self-serving blowhard who is our President has reduced government’s role as the guarantor of equal access to the benefits intrinsic to public policies that enforce educational, health, economic and legal rights.

The hypocrisy behind all the “inspiring” ads lauding the front line grocery clerks and bus drivers and hapless cleaning ladies mopping up the fetid floors of the ICU only points up the discrepancies. COVID-10 gets the headlines, but less affluent Americans also suffer disproportionately from the diseases of labor like black lung and mesothelioma and the diseases of poverty like obesity and diabetes.

There is a sinkhole of despair between affluent Americans in million dollar penthouses and eleven million desperate families that spend more than half their incomes on rent. And it is growing larger by the day, without any genuine prospect of betterment. Not to mention the half million homeless population who will sleep in the streets tonight. There is one hell of a difference between being inconvenienced and facing eviction.

Most worrisome is the continuing decline of the public school system as the great equalizing force in American life. For every tear jerking photo showing wonderful mom home schooling adorable kids there are millions of neglected children falling further behind, lacking both reliable internet access or an adult who can afford to stay home to help with the math.

As for seniors like myself cheating death by finding joy and meaning in a purposeful old age, the statistics citing the astonishing disproportion of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes spotlights the growing crisis of an aging demographic.

As a friend of mine wrote me, at a certain point, even the most oblivious among us must realize how fortunate many of us are. Our fridge is full and there’s an invitation to Zoom cocktails at five. On the bell curve of life, genetics, circumstance and good fortune have rolled the dice in our favor, but those on the backside need a helping hand, because the fact is, we really are NOT all in this together!

As we grew up, we were taught to be guided by our conscience. Now, told to shelter in place, most of us do so out of respect for our city’s effort to flatten the spread of the virus, a response guided by social conditions. But what I’m suggesting is a more far reaching response spurred by a higher level of truth, our consciousness, or Guiding Force, that is rooted in personal morality rather than social conditioning.

Deal with the shelter in place mandate on this level and you understand that your inner sense of truth goes beyond the headlines and statistics… and the bleating of Trump and the charts of Doctor Fauci. The coronavirus crisis becomes the “micro of the macro.” Your see clearly that America is facing more than crisis of its health system; the moral conscious of its society is being questioned. Democracy governing a pluralistic America is at stake.