They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace – Jeremiah 6:14
As I walk through this time of pandemic, as I come to terms with the realities of this season, and as I make decisions about how to protect my family, the church I have been called to pastor, and my community, my mind keeps going back to an episode of Little House on the Prairie.
It’s Christmas Eve, and Miss Beadle, the schoolteacher of Walnut Grove, decides to give her students an early present. There is a light snowfall, and she announces that they can all go home early. What she doesn’t know is that the light snowfall is about to turn into a blizzard. As the kids make their way home, they are overtaken by the storm. Many make it safely to their nearby homes. But those who live farther away from town, like the Ingles girls, wind up caught in the storm with no sense of direction and no hope of finding their way home.
The town soon pulls together to deal with the crisis. Doc Baker enlists the women of the town to gather at the schoolhouse (which is also the town church) to get fires going and prepare to treat any of the children who are recovered and in need of care. The Men of Walnut Grove are organized into search parties and begin to scour the routes that lead out of the town’s center. It’s hard going. The wind is fierce, and they are practically snow blind. One of the men, desperate to find his son, pushes too far. Not wearing the proper clothing, he is especially vulnerable to the elements, and they eventually take him down. He falls in the woods.
The search parties eventually come across his dead body. Because the children are still missing, there is nothing they can do but let his corpse lie in the woods where it is slowly covered with snow.
The search continues long into the night, as children are slowly found and returned to the school/church. On Christmas morning, the last of the children are finally found, and there is a celebration. The parents rejoice. Talk about tidings of comfort and joy! All the children have been found! Everyone is safe! Everyone is so happy.
But then Charles notices that ‘everyone’ doesn’t mean everyone. Standing alone on the other side of the building is the widow and son of the man who had fallen in the woods. The crisis may have ended well for most of Walnut Grove, but for those who lost their loved one, the dawn brought no peace, no comfort, and no joy. Compassionately, Charles moves to the pulpit and reads words of comfort from the Bible, drawing everyone’s attention to the family’s grief. This ends the celebration, but it reminds the people of the reality of the crisis they have passed through. Not everyone is happy. Some have suffered, and will continue to suffer, profound loss.
There is a great divide in America right now. Actually, there are many in these divisive times. But one of the deepest and cruelest is the one between those who have lost someone they love to the pandemic and those who have not.
Having lost my Dad to this crisis, I have to say that the existence of this divide cuts deep. I have been blessed by many friends who have understood my grief, and am thankful for the many people who have, like Charles Ingles, chosen to stand on my side of the divide. But it is hard to watch the reactions of those on the other side. It is difficult to listen to people claim this ‘plandemic’ is a hoax. Or selfishly protest reasonable and scientifically grounded policies designed to save vulnerable lives. Or say that it’s no big deal because, after all, it’s only the vulnerable, weak, old, and unhealthy who die anyway (which isn’t even always the case). Or that the inconvenience of all this has gone on long enough and they want to just get back to normal so they can get their hair cut, go on vacation, go to church, or sit downtown and sip their double mocha lattes again on Thursday afternoons. That it’s time to open everything up again without reasonable restriction or caution because, well, the crisis hasn’t affected them and probably won’t, so who the hell cares about anyone else.
Like the woman and her son, those of us who have lost loved ones to Covid-19 can only stand apart and wonder how people can be so self-absorbed, how they can care so little for the ongoing loss of and risk to vulnerable life.
I know. I’m a killjoy. I’m harshing everyone’s buzz as they prepare for the glorious day when things ‘get back to normal.’ Sorry to be such an inconvenience. But those of us who have lost loved ones, and there are many of us, know several things the celebrants don’t seem to fully appreciate.
We know that this virus kills. Hard and fast. We know that it steals loved ones away.
We know that frontline health care workers are risking their lives every day. Not just because we read about it in the papers, but because we’ve watched them caring for our loved ones.
We know what’s it’s like to have to say goodbye to someone you love on Face Time. What it feels like to not be able to hold their hand or embrace them one last time. And we know what it’s like to grieve their loss without any of the traditional means and methods of mourning.
We know that it’s both selfish and cruel to act as if all is right with the world in the presence of those who know such things.
And we know that the storm is still raging.
So, as we stand off in the corner, on our side of the great divide, all we can do is scratch our heads at the foolishness and selfishness of those who celebrate the end of a blizzard that is, in fact, far from over.
Under Christ’s Mercy
Brent