To Be Sick or Not to Be Sick
For the last year I have not had a cold. Wow! That’s incredible for someone like me who, for over six decades, has had at least one cold every year. By now all my cold meds from 2019, entirely unused, have expired. I have three boxes of Kleenex that I bought in January 2020 that still remain unopened. For over twelve months I have not had to deal with all the hacking and wheezing that go with the common rhinovirus.
But now that everything is opening up in the post-pandemic US, I am faced with a choice. And the basic dilemma behind that choice is: to be sick or not to be sick. The call of the gospel is simple: the time has come for me to drop the mask and the social distancing. But as I do so, all the risks, both little and big, of the pre-pandemic world rapidly return—including catching an everyday cold.
No doubt there was security in the pandemic lockdowns. I hear plenty of people listing the advantages of our recent precautions with comments like:
I didn’t have to fret about makeup, dress pants, and matching shoes.
Church was so much easier to attend from my family room—and I could eat whatever I wanted!
I used to avoid rush hour traffic; now I sit waiting to make a left turn.
As a teacher, classes were so much easier to teach when they were split to accommodate distancing rules.
Earlier this year I read Adam Grant’s Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. His focus on humble uncertainty struck me. As a lifelong teacher by profession, I know the value of holding opinions loosely and of distinguishing capital-T Truth from the many truths that come and go. Cooperative learning, open classrooms, teaching only to a student’s learning style, values clarification—these are just some of the educational “truths” heralded in years past that that are now quite secondary, if not all together discredited.
But some truths begin with a capital-T. The Bible clearly teaches that we are made for community. Adam’s state was not good until Eve arrived on the scene. At their best, the tribes of Israel worked together. According to Paul, the predominant image for the Church is a fully-functioning body. Over the last year and a half, the realities of social distancing, masking, cohorting, and protecting the vulnerable have highlighted the fact that community is a gift and not a given.
The pandemic shifted our focus. And as a result, we all the more need to rehearse the Truth that our lives function best when they revolve around “Him” and “others.” Isolation leads to distortion, rather than cognitive diversity. Isolation leads to depression (See Lost Connections by Johann Hari). Isolation also leads to divisions; we lose our ability to empathize, sympathize, or even show compassion.
So let me leave you with three big-T Truths from the Scripture:
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near (Hebrews 10:24-25).
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing (1 Thessalonians 5:11).
For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them (Matthew 18:20).
May these Truths motivate you to embrace with faith a return to in-person community!
