The constant flood of negativity and fear surrounding COVID-19 has reached devastating proportions. Typically, Americans struggle well together, courageously united against a common enemy or disaster (WWII, 911, and Katrina come to mind ). The marked division of the COVID crisis has a uniquely negative quality, becoming more sharply defined as fear increases.
The reason is obvious: the enemy is not outside of us. The enemy is us.
We are trying to band together and doing so successfully in many ways, but progress is complicated by the underlying fear that the enemy is invisible except for the faces of friends. We will throw ourselves into a burning building or flood waters to rescue strangers, but disease is a different psychological beast.
The protective action of quarantine is passive. There is an intentional withholding and isolation; intended for good, but not without negative consequences when taken to an unhealthy (unholy) degree. This isolation, combined with constant fear mongering from our digital connections, inevitably grows into a reluctance to take risks, a growing suspicion of neighbors, and nurtured, distinct, and pervasive fear of others.
Many seem almost compulsively driven to spread that fear. This inclination is certainly easier to cultivate than the virtue of hope. And I can understand the impassioned desire to keep people safe during a time of uncertainty. For example: Wash your hands. Stay Home. Great message…within reason, of course. Don’t wash your hands compulsively and do go out if you ought. But in general, it is good advice.
But after weeks of the same driving message, accompanied by intense shaming, blaming, anger, and panic…I became confused by anxious intensity. Confused not only by the decline in civility and compassion but also the absence of the typical buoyancy of the human spirit.
My social media feed is carefully cultivated to include people of faith who communicate truth, beauty, and hope to my mind. I also love a good rousing discussion/debate with people who ultimately know how to reign it in and give it to God. However, during this crisis, many otherwise reasonable people changed. The most surprising discovery has been that the message of fear from Christians matched the secular response step for step.
Any deviance from a sustained and fierce level of corona-fear has been shouted down. Virtual caution tape has been placed around commenters who share a word of hope. They are isolated with fierce accusations. The bitterness of the words used strikes me as alarmingly close to hatred.
I didn’t initially understand why. But, I think I understand now. It makes sense…
People are afraid that if they allow hope to flourish, their neighbors will stop taking precautions, the contagion will spread, and everyone will die. They believe (on some level) that encouraging hope will cause relaxed vigilance in safety measures.
In short, they are afraid of the stupidity and carelessness of their neighbors, family, and friends. They don’t trust you. They don’t trust me. They know the human condition and have been hurt by it. The weapon of fear, whether used consciously (hello politicians and CNN) or subconsciously, is ultimately about control. Unmitigated fear breeds spectacular levels of selfishness.
They know you’ll screw it up and that terrifies them.
They aren’t wholly wrong…but let’s get back to that later.
BITTER OLD WOMEN
This fear-based approach reminds me of the ubiquitous bitter old woman who feels the need to constantly take younger women down a peg. If you’ve been a younger mom, you likely know the type. She is filled with regret and pain from a life of hurt. She is depressed. She is angry. She is emotionally and physically isolated. She feels a moral certainty that young women will suffer as she has suffered and she wants to warn them.
And so she does…
“Four kids, eh? Ha. You’re in for it!”
“Don’t you know what causes that, young man! You leave your wife alone in the bedroom!”
”Get a job, honey. Don’t depend on anyone!”
”Having so many kids is selfish! Stop thinking with your hormones.”
Aside from being rude, the fundamental problem with this approach is that it accomplishes nothing but to feed bitterness and fear in the already fearful, and to rob the free of their peace of mind. This is different from offering advice and information from a place of kindness and a position of friendship…
It is much more like trying to teach children while screaming in their faces.
The invariable outcome is some measure of injury, traumatic response, or fear. Fear harms the body, makes one more vulnerable to illness by suppressing immune function, initiates instincts of survival and promotes dangerous forms of selfishness (ie hoarding, looting, withdrawing from the needy, sinful anger, neglect of others). When this panic is widespread among a populace, bad things happen.
CONTROL AND FEAR
The bitter old woman cannot make a pregnant woman un-pregnant. She cannot prevent her from suffering. Her self-centered words of warning serve only to introduce sorrow and fear to a woman who has a right to peace of mind and joy in new life. The older woman isn’t really concerned about the well-being of others. Her bitter words are the complaint of her own heart…the result of many private tears that seem to bear no fruit and offer no consolation.
For those who fear illness and plague and actively suppress the hope of others, the effect is similar. It is a useless but damaging way to control undesirable behavior. An expression of their own fear projected onto those who are seen (consciously or subconsciously) as obstacles to peace and security.
“Stay home, healthy people! Or you will kill someone! Like me! You will ruin my life, my family, everything that makes me happy.”
Last I checked, there were millions of essential workers, single parents, and sole family providers who must leave the house to work. And thank God they do. There are also millions more who must eat, must seek medical care, breathe fresh air, must relieve depression, and who suffer from disability and deadly isolation.
These people are not killers.
To shame them is like shaming the pregnant woman for being pregnant or for daring to think that the future might contain beautiful things; for knowing that she will love her child regardless of what the doctor said about odds of disability; for believing life might not be as bad as people say; for smiling when other people cannot.
I have seen many articles of hope shared on the internet in recent days. Expert opinions showing the possibility that the spread of disease has been miscalculated and that the numbers moving forward are more positive than expected. That maybe we have already reached peak in certain cities. That hospitals are prepared. That there have been some discrepancies in reported numbers from other countries. Possibilities, not certainties. But still possible.
People read and feel relief. Their bodies relax. They start to heal, and sleep seems possible again.
To take that hope “down a peg” is not only cruel, it is dangerous and immoral. We die without hope. We shrivel. We become selfish and angry. We do rash things. We embrace deadly chains. And still, the fear of even professed Christians manifests…
Tone down your hope. Tone it down! It’s not true. It’s dangerous. You’ll give people the idea that maybe things aren’t as bad as they are. They’ll go out to parties. They won’t wash their hands. And we’ll all die. We’ll all get sick and die. Your hope must not be allowed to rise…because it conflicts with my need to control my life and my fear.
THE CHRISTIAN FAIL
More alarming than the persistent fear-mongering is that it is prominent among Christians. And ironically, it is peaking during the holy season of Lent when we are supposed to be immersed in the TRUTH. The Truth that we all die. And that Easter comes, the realization of all hope.
This time of crisis, fear, and suffering is what Christians have been preparing for. We are made for this moment! It is the moment when the world is gripped with terror over this thing called DEATH and for which we hold the key.
This is where we step into the arena and say with confidence:
O death, where is thy victory?
O death, where is thy sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)
We should be preaching this from every platform we have, radiant with joy and hope. This is our time. This is the open door. This is our neighbors nailed to their crosses of fear begging for hope, and it is the moment of grace in which we have the very answer they need…
The ONLY answer.
This is our Mother Teresa moment. We set aside our fear of death and maggots and we pick up the suffering (literally or virtually) on the street and bring them home to live or die. She was exposed constantly to disease and yet she continued to touch people. Physically. Because she knew…
Isolation of body, mind, and soul are deadly.
She did not leave the dying alone to die. And if she were alive now, she would not. She would hold them and bathe them and give them to God.
To some, she might say “Stay home!” But never would she suppress hope by suggesting that there was anything which death could steal from us. Never would she neglect the soul over care for the body.
Fr. Jacque Philippe writes that “If hope is extinguished, love grows cold. A world without hope soon becomes a world without love…God does not give according to our merits, but according to our hope.”
We will not only be held accountable for how we have nurtured hope in our own lives, but in how we have supported it — or destroyed it — in others.
Pouring anger and shame onto their situation is like badgering the pregnant woman. Pestering the grieving. Tormenting the fearful. Inciting panic among those who cannot sleep as a result of anxiety. Buying all the toilet paper to prep for the zombie apocalypse while shaming others for leaving home to provide for their own basic needs. Screaming about death and ignoring the ones who are dying in hopeless and terrified isolation.
Is this the same community which has previously poured out support for the countless people we know suffering from anxiety and depression? It cannot be. Is this how we serve each other? It is appalling and inconsistent.
THE ESSENTIAL MESSAGE OF HOPE:
YOU WILL DIE. YOU WILL LIVE.
Social media is filled with aimless and angry grieving over this unknown variable known as COVID-19. But compassion for those grieving other losses is often suppressed:
Those who have lost income, housing, companionship, sacraments, major life events, health care, exercise, ability to come home, right to vote, education, access to sick loved ones, community resources, etc. are not allowed to grieve publicly..s
Because it is too close to permission; permission to seek an alternative other than complete control over human behavior.
When pressed, a Christian will always concede that Jesus is the answer to the question of fear and disease. But it is the daily words and actions which give the impression of something different…
Hold on, Jesus. We’ll get back to you in a couple months. We have to save the world. Oh, you did that already? Well, kind of. I mean you did…but not like this. We have to stop COVID. That’s different. You understand, of course. We know you’ll understand. This is a special circumstance. We are all going to die, Lord, if we don’t do something. What? Oh, of course…we are all going to die anyway. But this is different. This is different.
As if we can walk into the valley of the shadow of death without Christ and live.
Much of my work as a writer is dedicated to the subject of bodily healing. I spend significant time and effort teaching Christians about the obligation to care for this physical gift, the only vehicle through which we are able to serve others. I find it ironic that those who ignore the message of health during normal times are panicking about the potential loss now. And I will have more to say about that in the near future.
I know both the value of good health and also the experience of its loss. I fight daily against the affects of disease. This ever present reality helps me to recall that there is no more essential element to spiritual, physical, and mental health than HOPE. And I’m done with the deadly voices of fear. They put all of us at greater risk, especially the most physically, mentally, and spiritually vulnerable among us.
RETURN TO HOPE
It is Lent, friends. Repent and receive the Gospel. This is our time. And, as hard as it is sometimes to say…I TRUST YOU.
I trust you to be responsible with hope.
I trust you with hope.
I trust you.
I trust you to stay informed.
I trust you to take reasonable precautions.
I trust you to leave home if you need to.
I trust you to drive next to me on the highway with a ton of metal filled with explosive fuel.
I trust you to prepare my food,
teach my children,
operate on my flesh,
keep the bridges from falling down,
keep the lions in cages,
and keep my car running.
Trust is essential to living in community. If we do not, at some point, lay down this belief that we can stay insulated from the decisions of others (good or bad), we will die alone and in fear, killing the hope (and flesh) of others with our angry bitterness.
I trust you to make good decisions. I also accept the fact that you (and I) will screw it up. But…
That’s life.
And still…I choose to trust you.
More than that, we must trust God. There is no fear worthy of a Christian other than the fear of separation from Christ. He is hope. He is life.
We must stay informed and be prudent, careful and discerning. We can be alarmed and frighted, alert and grieving, angry, spirited, active, engaged…But at no time can we actively suppress hope in others without tragic consequences. We will be held accountable.
This virus will run its course. People will die. The overwhelming majority will live to die another day. And hopefully, we will eventually recall that life is not fundamentally about control over our manner of death .
I AM NOT AFRAID.
I am not afraid of death.
Jesus has conquered and reigns.
If that sounds trite and dismissive to you, then perhaps you have lost your fervor and need to return to the Gospel. It is Lent after all. It is time.
Later tonight, I will lay down in the silence and grapple again with my fears. I will face them one by one until I can’t get any further in my imagination than death. And around 3am or so, I’ll drop off to sleep having given it all to Jesus. Desperate to survive the fear, I will be forced to remember that He is my only HOPE.
In the morning, I will rise again, hopeful but tired. And if I get on social media, I’ll see all the fear again. And if I turn on the news, I’ll see fear. I’ll hear the networks almost giddy with their scripts of fear. My governor will resume talking: Be afraid. It is coming. It is big and bad and it is coming.
And I just can’t sustain that level of panic. I have no other option but to trust you. And to trust God.
I’ve reconciled with COVID-19. I believe that we are creative enough, intelligent enough, respectful enough to live freely with this thing and to live with the reality of death. We will do it with prudence and love. With human contact and sacrament. Without unholy panic…to enkindle holy fire in the world.
It is the perfect time in our lives and in history to become a living testimony to the hope of Jesus Christ. I am eager for Easter (so eager) and hope for the transformation of fear into Joy. I’m praying for the reunion of community and of souls whose vision is unobscured by terror of death.
Repent and believe in the Gospel!
Come, Lord Jesus. Help transform us in Thy grace.
