I think we’ve officially reached the end of the “easy part” of the coronavirus challenge. Difficult decisions will soon have to be made.
Can we afford to continue with our current “total quarantine” approach?
Can we afford not to?
There isn’t enough information available yet for anyone to be certain they have the right answer – but there is more than sufficient evidence to justify our asking the questions.
Here is a brief list of what we will need in order to have this conversation without doing irreparable damage to our civil society: Mercy. Patience. Trust. Dialogue. Self-evaluation and team spirit.
Mercy: Because we will all be wrong at some point in this process.
Patience: Because it takes a while to understand something this complex.
Trust: Because experts (doctors and economists) and leaders (politicians) will soon be making decisions that we cannot fully understand.
Dialogue: Because people will be scared, angry, worried – and because regular people deserve to be heard. The hardware store owner will go bankrupt if we continue with the current plan. Someone’s 80 year old grandma will die if we opt for plan B. Everyone deserves to be heard on a decision of this magnitude.
Self-evaluation: Because we all tend to argue from a position of self-interest. If you have a guaranteed income, you are almost certainly going to argue for the current plan. If you are going to go bankrupt in 30 days you are going to vote for option B. Know your perspective and try to understand the perspective of others.
Team spirit: Because the good of the many, really does outweigh the good of the few. Every culture has to face up to this at some point. Hard decisions have to be made FOR THE GROUP that will inevitably NOT be in the best interests of some. That is true regardless of which option we choose in this scenario. So – even if it hurts – cheer for the team.
Praying for you brothers and sisters.
Praying for you politicians and leaders.
Praying for you moms and dads.
Praying for you small business owners.
Praying for you grandmas and grandpas.
And may God have mercy on us all.
SDG
Paul Carter
To listen to the most recent episodes of Pastor Paul’s Into The Word devotional podcast on the TGC Canada website see here. You can also find it on iTunes. To access the entire library of available episodes see here.