Notes for the Week Fourth Week after Pentecost June 28 2020

Dear friends,

This reminds me of how the world seems on COVID-19; somewhat contained by the rules, but all haywire on how to keep them.  All on the inside of the bin? Or, maybe OK to let it all hang out. It’s a gamble.  Maybe the yard debris will be gone in the morning, or maybe there will be a bit of a pile pointedly left behind, leaving it for you to deal with it anew. 

It reminds me of the mask wearing game: wearing your mask if you see someone approaching from 100 yards away or throwing caution to the wind and leaving it off as they pass by with less than 6 feet between you.  Rules?  What rules? If one doesn’t know that one is a possible carrier of a deadly disease, or just can’t believe that such a phenomenon could exist, then one opts to leave the mask off. If, on the other hand, one counts oneself vulnerable to catching the plague, for a variety of reasons, one surely opts to leave one’s mask firmly in place.

Over the last several weeks, during my daily walks, I’ve passed lots of friendly people, out for an early walk with the dog, running with earphones, riding their bikes.  We share a common bond that wraps itself around the early hour of the day.  Regardless of the apparent age and circumstances of each and the activity level each displays, we are all members of an early bird community.  We belong to the quieter, fresher part of the day, and as fellow members, familiar or not, we acknowledge each other as we pass by, with a wave, a nod, or a smile of welcome recognition here and there. Sometimes we say things as we pass, like: “Nice day,” “Nice dog,” “Good morning,” or just simply, “Mornin,’” with nothing more than a twitch of the head, or a slight raise of the hand.  Usually, we give each other wide berths, acknowledging mutual respect for appropriate space.

But more recently,  I’ve noticed there seem to be more and more apparent risk takers entering the early bird club.  These are the mask-free ones, who venture much closer, especially if passing by quickly on a bike or running.  They are gambling that no little coronavirus droplet will gleefully ride the wind and land on us slow goers.  So, I wear my mask, taking it up and down, down and up, depending on who’s coming or going.  Much as I hate messing with the darn thing, my gambling days are over, and I prefer to stay alive a little longer.

What brought the yes-to-mask rule home to me was a recent article I read about the reason for wearing the mask: compassion for another.   For a long time, I thought I was merely protecting myself, and that much remains true.  However, the writer explained that the important part of wearing a mask has to do with my responsibility to protect someone else, be that person family, friend or stranger. So, one’s mask is doing double duty by not only protecting its wearer, but protecting all those very nice, unsuspecting people and keeping them safe from potentially germ-ridden me!  Each mask-less person that passes me by offers me yet another opportunity to practices a random act of kindness.  By the time I reach home, I feel as if I’ve accomplished double-duty as I walked my thousands of steps.  Maybe, just maybe, one of the early bird club, including me, was spared the coronavirus infection this morning.

Just like most issues that cause dilemma, we ask the question, ‘What would Jesus do?”   My guess is that he would wear his mask and he wouldn’t wear it just to protect himself.  That was always the least of his concerns.  No. It would be to protect the other, to keep the other safe, and in doing so, love one’s neighbor as one’s self.  Even when they fly by you barefaced on their bikes at 6:30 in the morning.

My prayer is that everyone will read an article that speaks to the good will of protecting someone else as well as themselves and they will realize that it always takes more effort, time and often, if more of a nuisance, to opt for playing by the rules, than to leave a bin filled with a bunch of branches out there for someone else to arm wrestle, or worse, leave a breeze filled with deadly germs out there for someone else to fight off.

We journey together.

Mother Esme+

Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

(Philippians 2:4)