It amazes me that the same forces that influence men and women in wars also have influenced Americans’ response to the COVID pandemic. With Omacron COVID, we are starting to see a possible light at the end of the tunnel from its death-like grip on our bodies but also that COVID may stay around in some form or other for years to come. There are contrasting responses between the forces that support life and those that support death in this situation. “Love, heroism, self-sacrifice, sympathy, mercy, integrity, and creative faith support life” (Pages 105-106) and those who are vaccinated. “Selfishness, hatred, envy, jealousy, greed, self-indulgence, laziness, and pride support death” (Pages 105-106) and those who refuse to get vaccinated.
On both sides of these responses, COVID has more than divided our nation; it has made both sides incapable of compromising, of working together to find the best and most healthy way out of this mess. I’d like to tell everyone that God is here, standing amongst us, waiting for us to share in His labors and agony as He cries over the world He created. In standing with us, God is allowing us to find our brothers. In finding and working with these beloved people, we “find our souls, our God, and all humanity.” (Page 108) Those that are supporting life are experiencing God’s love as expressed through Jesus Christ, in His passion, kindness, and caring. Those that are supporting death are experiencing self-centered love and man-made laws that hide the real truths about this disease. St. Paul realized the true power of God’s love when he wrote in (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 -KJV), “Charity suffereth long, and is kind: charity envieth not; charity vaunted not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”
Albert Schweitzer once said: “The fellowship of those who bear the mark of pain” (Page 120) will break the bonds of self-pity that keep us locked up in division and apart from each other’s lives and decisions. Love does not foster fear; it casts out fear. We must love those with different opinions from ours; at the same time, we must learn to compromise in the methods to reach a more positive outcome from this disease for the whole world. Both sides of this question, pro-life and pro-death, must come to realize that only when we come together, united in our efforts to survive on this planet and united in the grace of God and the love of Jesus Christ, will mankind live to see its Eternal home with God above. When we stand before God on judgment day and He asks us what we did to make His creation a better place, what will we say? “I did my part to help others or I didn’t care what happened to anyone but myself.”
Dostoevski once wrote in The Possessed, “The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great. If men are deprived of the infinitely great they will not go on living and die of despair. The infinite and the eternal are as essential for man as the little planet on which he dwells.” (Page 192) Which will it be…life or death?
(Quotes are from To End All Wars by Ernest Gordon, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Mi., 2002)
Anna Hartt
