Community has no official verb form. Someone I know said we should invent the verb form “to community.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us many things, but one stands out: the need “to community.”

Families and singles are locked down, connecting by Zoom and Facebook. Schools are closed as are gathering places: restaurants, bars, and churches.

Families suffering grief over the death of loved ones must postpone funerals and memorial services.

We can’t interact with our hair stylists or barbers. We dash in for pickup of food, not stopping to chat with staff.

We are born to community, to be part of a group: our family, relatives, and friends. Yet, in the age past, we put community behind things—making as much money as possible, buying as many gadgets as possible, putting tax breaks ahead of community services like health care.

We pay minimum wages to care givers who work with our elderly, as the virus spreads, and to the janitors, so important in a new age of cleanliness.

Have we learned to change our ways? After this pandemic passes into history, as please God it will, what changes will we make?

What will we do, for example, to strengthen that first community, the family? Healthcare, decent housing, education, and time to spend on nurturing?

Have we learned anything?