Kindness

 Its August 2021.

 I don't even feel like August 2020 happened.

 It seems as though we are still in the same spot we were a year ago. People are fighting with one another over a mask. Over a vaccine, a simple jab in the arm. A jab that most everyone in their life time has received. I sit and often try to put myself in their shoes. What would cause a person to look at a piece of cloth and suddenly throw a tantrum like a 2 year old. And the only thing I can come up with this ignorance. 

Pure and simple 

And I do not mean to call my friends or family that are not vaccinated, ignorant. Let me back up. I believe that the word ignorant has a really bad connotation. We often use it to call someone stupid or dumb. And truth be told if we look at the language, the word dumb is closer in meaning then stupid. To be dumb or ignorant about something simple means you do not know. This has nothing to do with your mental capacity to learn nor does it call into question the level of your intelligence at that very moment. It simply means you just don't know. And you don't know what you don't know right? 

The people that are ignorant about science and then choose to not get the vaccine when it first came about have the right to be fearful and apprehensive. The whole pandemic has seem scary. Every day the news is telling us more people are dying, that loved ones have been put on ventilators. Every day it seems I know someone effected by this pandemic. And it is getting to be too much. The kindness I normally extend to others is slowly being depleted. And in short it is because of the rampant ignorance in this nation, but not just that, but the ideology of basking in our ignorance. I am tired of my students asking me when the virus will be over, only to answer, until enough people get the vaccine."unfortunately buddy it'll be this way for awhile. To which I hear, but I got the vaccine!" My own students have all received the vaccine. We have come to a precipice where fact is no longer a valid argument, but that ideology comes before biology. Opinion is stronger then fact and for this reason I believe we can no longer try to show fact. Because its no longer simple ignorance, It just plan ideology. 

So, after much prayer and thought, talking with my Heavenly Father I appeal to the love that we all have in us. The capacity to be image bearers of Our Father in Heaven. Being an image bearer of God is such a high calling. When I stop and think about what that means and what that looks like I am in awe that I am made in the image of God. The God above, we are made in his image. If you think about that, then every person we meet is a facet of the all Mighty God above. But this also means we as believers are charged with either recognizing the God above has done this for us, in order for us to look toward him and serve him and his kingdom. Or we can recognize this and think we are god, and serve only ourselves and our interest. 

Wearing a mask and getting the vaccine is for God kingdom, especially because it is such a  simple thing, that doesn't require anything except putting your arm out twice.  If you refused to look at the science and the facts then I appeal to the God shaped image in your heart. Martin Luther wrote the following himself during  the bubonic plague, (yes the world has gone through this before... its really not the end of times) 

"I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presences is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance influence and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligences. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and i have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however i shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God. -Martin Luther-1527

Our world is in a state of pain and hurt. But it hurts more and more when the simple act of kindness like wearing a mask to not spread germs to others in order to not overwhelm our hospitals is hard for grown adults to follow. These same adults follow government rules and behave in ways that help others. 

The verse Deuteronomy 22:8... is a pretty funny verse: When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.

The genius of this verse is that it is so much more. A roof doesn't need a fence, no one goes up on a roof so there is not need to keep people safe with a fence around a a roof. 

But we have speed limits, this keeps people safe. We shovel the snow on our sidewalks for people to walk safely. We wear seatbelts to keep ourselves and others safe. We have handrails on stairs to keep people safe. For the most part, kindness is within us. We want to help our fellow man, we do want to keep people safe. 

There are many things we do on a daily basis that is in kindness. At least I want to believe that the majority of the world wants to be kind. Put down your politics, put down your ideology, look inward and reflect kindness and love.  Instead of basking in ignorance of not understanding the vaccine, turn around act in kindness. Remember your neighbors, act in love.