I can only image how short my life
would have been if I slid into the driver's seat of my 1964 maroon
Impala SS two door hardtop and sped out of the drive way burning
rubber because, “No body is going to tell me how fast I can drive
my car. This is America and I can do as I please.” At 14 years old,
my father would have killed me or he would have made me wish I was
dead. In the same way, he did not go out in the front yard and shoot
his double barreled 16 gauge shot gun—just because “he could.”
From the time of the Constitution and
Bill of Rights, in America we have lived together with a “social
contract.” Such a contract helped us form communities, work
together, respect laws, have social services: fire; law enforcement;
and various other conveniences of an ordered society.
It is as though all of that has fallen
away in these latter days of rage and belligerence. When a home was
quarantined years ago, we did not rise up and march because “rights
were infringed upon.” We understood the risks to the community of
contagious diseases.
These past few years have fanned the
fires of hatred, racial division, conspiracy theories, and a flagrant
disregard for the law. I am not surprised because our current
President never met a law he would not break or disregard with
disdain. So like poison leching into a well, it has poisoned a
culture which has been given more, had more opportunities, leads the
world in affluence—yet it is still not enough. We feel something
for which we are entitled is being withheld from us. Sadly, the
false prophets of Evangelical religious leaders are helping peddle
that slop. Abandoning the church house and the prayer room, they have
crowded polling booths, packed the courts with the “right kind of
judges,” all the while making a mockery of “Trusting God not
men.”
What the religiously judgmental and
angry crowd cannot see is the parallels to first century Pharisees
who were strong on the law, but weak on compassion. These ruthless
crowds demanding the opening of our society, our schools, our way of
life lack the basic compassion of a gnat. In the words of Dr Seuss,
“Their hearts are two sizes too small.” That is a terrible
indictment for a Christian. In fact, a compassion less Christian is
an oxymoron.
Right now in my aging circle of
friends, I have a pediatrician, more school teachers than I can
count, law enforcement officers, soldiers both active duty and
veterans, men and women who are retired but not useless, and children
and grandchildren I dearly love. I would add to that ministry
families I have known for many years or few years. I cherish each. I
know social service folks who work in the trenches of helping
children be safe. I know professors at the university level and all
of them I respect and admire. I have siblings, nieces and nephews and
great nieces and nephews, and every single one is loved and
cherished. I would not give up a single one of them. I would not
exercise a freedom which could put any or all of them at risk. I
would not fail to do everything the scientists and doctors who really
know what is going on recommend I do. I have no time for pundits, and
presidents who cheated their way to the top and know absolutely
nothing about everything but they can talk loud and long
pontificating with their gross ignorance. They may mesmerize fools
and the foolish, but it is all gibberish at the end of the day.
So, perhaps what I would encourage you
to do is simply this: Take a moment today and think about the most
important people in your world right now. Think about them. Think
about what if the reality of COVID is real(and it is) and because of
your carelessness or someone else's, you lost them to the most
excruciating death to come along in a long while. Put a face on COVID
that is the person you most cherish—and then ask yourself, “Is it
to much to wear a mask for them?”
Wash your hands, wear your mask for
others, mind the gap, and be kind.
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