In Honour of One

There are staggering numbers in circulation these days. They all represent very human COVID-19 realities: At the time of posting this, just under 3.5 million cases worldwide, and almost ¼ million deaths.

How about this. A second generation of locusts is consuming east Africa. A first generation struck a few months ago. A third is expected in June. Each generation produces 20 times the previous one. Efforts to deal with this are stifled by restrictions on activity and travel. It is said the swarms could spread to west Africa and even south Asia. In east Africa alone, 30 million people could face starvation. People. Not just numbers. 

Yes, the numbers are staggering. But, in the face of all these numbers, there is one number we need to be honoured for caring about: one. We are being as Christ when we are moved by the needs of one among many. It is not just natural to be worried for your loved one in long term care, it is honourable. And we each honour ourselves, and others, with our self-care in this time, and always. 

All Times Are Interim

Yes, some people are getting very frustrated with all this, the house arrest, or whatever, in frustration, it gets called. As hokey as it may sound, I try to tell myself there is something, always, to be learned here. As, for instance in this.

About 6 or 7 weeks ago, I had a lens fall out of my glasses (thankfully, not the side with my “good” eye). Worse, the tiny little screw was gone, so I couldn’t even attempt to fix it myself, even if I had the requisite precision screwdriver, which I don’t. And it was just when everything had shut down, so an optical place was out. But the lens was for my right eye, out of which I do not see much useful anyway (because: glaucoma). So I figured I would just make do.

Just a few days ago, after six weeks, I remembered I have a perfectly good pair of backup glasses sitting in a drawer in my TV bench. Worse, I just moved here a couple of months ago, so I quite recently put them there! I am losing it. My mind is going. Such is what one thinks.

So blame it on the time. It’s this thing we’re going through. Only I suspect a lot of us–even though in our minds we know it’s happening to everyone–we find a way to take it personally. The universe has given you a demotion. You are experiencing exile in your own home. It’s biblical exile, punishment. God is getting us for something. 

But, as I understand it, even if it is some kind of exile, it is supposed to be constructive, instructive, bettering. So what am I learning that I will take with me? Not forever, maybe, but for the next stage of things, whatever shape that takes. There is no permanent state.

All times are interim. The next interim time will have its own experiences, insights to gain, and, yes, frustrations.

So maybe frustration over our when questions can be mitigated, just a bit, by attending to what we are learning. For me: Appreciation for optical places, and people who work in all kinds of helpful areas, and maybe I will learn to be a little more alert.

Overwhelmed?

A recurring word these days: overwhelmed. Medical workers, first responders, long term care personnel together with residents and their loved ones, parents working at home and home schooling, people with no work, or no home–well, pretty much everyone is overwhelmed.

Along with the expression of being overwhelmed, we sometimes hear, “God won’t give you more than you can bear.”

Sure, you might say.

The saying seems to be a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 10:13, which actually has to do with not being overcome by temptation. The “way out” referred to has to do with the power of community support.

The connection to our setting may be that the support for the Corinthians rests in a community of believers even across time. So why not also across space? Finding help in this depends on a power to connect beyond what we consider normal. 

Whatever, or whoever, you attribute it to, you and others are finding ever new means and resources for being together while physically apart.

I have just used that word: normal. There has been lots of talk about a new normal. We should not sell ourselves short on our capacity to alter our inclinations, in order to find a new normal a positive reality, however natural we would consider our present inclinations. Inside the human skull is a universe of possibility. We just have to tap into it.

Add together (1) a power to connect us–some of us would consider this spirit to be divine in origin, character and being, together with (2) a conscious suspension of clinging to what we consider normal, and we are well on the way not to be overwhelmed. We are, beyond that, setting ourselves up to flourish.

Nothing will replace the warmth of physical nearness  for comfort and encouragement. But we have mind and spirit that make possible infinitely more possibilities. 

It Was a Decision

There was chaos enough. I mean in Nova Scotia, like everywhere in these strange times. But it has descended there into something few of us can truly apprehend. 

Even at the best of times, I suspect you are not unusual if you have, not all that far beneath the surface, and even when things seem to be bumping along ok, a sense that it wouldn’t take much for everything to just fall apart. I suspect, further, that that beneath-the-surface thing is one reason routine is important for us. 

A very common pairing of words in the Bible would seem significant in how we can help one another with these under-the-surface things. I just used it: one another. Love one another, for instance. Our decisions, for good or for ill, even when they seem to concern only ourselves, have an impact on others. There are incalculable factors that lead up to the decisions we make, but there comes that moment when it is our decision to make, to say or do this or that.

We may never know what led to the Nova Scotian shooter’s decision to do what he did–though that is a necessary investigation– but it was, in the end, a decision (let’s not ask what drove him). It erupted in devastating chaos and darkness for many. 

I, for one, am reminded, especially given the fears and insecurities that may already be just beneath the surface of those I may affect, to take care regarding the decisions I make. Not, actually, a bad thing to pray at the start of each day.

Choose Infinite Possibility

When we work together there are infinite possibilities. That’s an observable truth. From the perspective of faith, it should be no surprise. We have been given a world in which we have everything we need. We have been given minds and hearts to make loving use of it all. It is all meant for the sake of living in community — with one another and in partnership with all of creation.  The possibilities are boundless.

It doesn’t take much thought for anyone with even half a heart of caring to recognize how valuable it was for Alberta to release medical equipment to other provinces. School children are undertaking projects to help food banks and help fund Personal Protective Equipment for front line workers. The examples, as you know, go on and wonderfully on.

There is, however, and sadly, another kind of possibility. It could be characterized, broadly, as opportunism.

Coronavirus Coups.  That’s the term that’s been used to characterize the actions of national regimes that go far beyond what is necessary in having enhanced powers to deal with the pandemic. They take it as an opportunity to grab powers, with no end date, that enhance their dictatorial predilections. Then there is some price gouging here and there, and looting of closed retail locations. Yes, opportunism. 

Any moral person recognizes the beauty of one and the ugliness of the other here. But it goes deeper. Opportunists among us, you take many forms. Know that you are cheating yourself. There is a simple equation to this. Work together: boundless opportunity and possibilities. Go it selfishly and opportunistically alone: Initial success of some kind, perhaps, but ultimately constriction and dead ends. It is not “just the way the world works.” 

The way the world works has been shown not to be working. We must not go back to what we have known if that’s what’s “normal.”

Littered Path

You no doubt have been disgusted, rightly, by the news shots of gloves and face masks discarded in the parking lots and on the walkways leading from grocery stores. The thoughtless grotesqueness of this is in stark contrast to the heroic selflessness of so many others.

I have heard it said that we are always in danger of crossing a line that makes us less human, or even less than human. This may be one of those lines.

The Biblical creation accounts give expression to a humanity created for community–with God, one another, and all created, abundant life. Any littering is of course harmful, potentially unhealthy, as well as ugly to the senses. Those committing this particularly egregious form apparently do not care, in addition, that they are stepping away from their own made-for-community nature.

The path to inhumanity is paved with litter

Bad Does Not Become Good

Good will come of this, even this pandemic. Yes, it is true. Perhaps we will re-prioritize, perceive and experience community in a better way, maybe have more meaningful greetings than a tossed-off, “Hi howya doin’?” But what is true does not always have to be spoken, at least not without great care for the circumstances of the intended recipient. The issue? Good can come from the bad; this does not make the bad good.

 Consider what you go through in a personal crisis (which might be the case now in conjunction with the public one). When you are in the midst of anxiety, uncertainty and pain, how helpful is it for some chronic advice-giver to come along and point out to you all the good that will come of it? Not very. Not at all. It just makes things worse. It is good and important, at some point, to find reason for gratitude in our circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18), but never for all circumstances. That would make the bad good. Good can and will come out of the bad. That is God’s doing. That means God is good, not our circumstances.

Let’s be careful about pointing out the good that will come from bad things. Some of us will be nowhere near ready to hear it.

Not as the World Gives

The thing we are most afraid of is always what is within us.

Unsettling feelings about immoral and unethical conduct in a crisis (e.g. scammers, opportunistic leaders) may be addressed by resolving to do the caring thing. This can work its way into the soul (see previous post) to assure and encourage us about what is true and enduring.  Similarly, finding something of peace to focus on, beyond our self-preoccupations, might just quiet our deepest fear, that is, of what lies within us. It is what we suspect lies within us that we fear even more than exterior threats.

Jesus, in pledging his peace, said, “I do not give to you as the world gives” (John 14:27). Neither virus nor inner primordial fear will get the better of the person you are made to be and to be part of what God eternally has in mind for you.

Caring Will Endure

A crisis brings out the best and worst traits and behaviours. On one hand, we are warned of coronavirus-related scams. But we also see companies retooling to produce ventilators and personal protective equipment, and people making a point of showing appreciation for frontline workers. 

How will I conduct myself? has always been a question in time of testing, and may be just beneath our consciousness as we try to absorb the enormity and implications of the current crisis. We can fret internally over this, or focus on the everyday practical measures we keep hearing about–and need to–to help keep ourselves and others safe. If we believe love is at the heart of everything (see the beginning of John’s Gospel), then everyday caring is how we exercise that deep truth in a practical manner, and experience some peace and assurance in the doing.

The scammers and opportunistic leaders will have their day. It is caring that will endure.