The Year of Covid-19

Could He have prevented this disaster? Of course He could, if He is almighty. So, why did he not? Following immediately from this thought and arising out of it is the equally powerful question; what about all those previous disasters? 13th century Bubonic Plague (responsible for the death of a third of the population of Europe): World Wars I and II (perhaps as many as thirty million people killed); climate change with disastrous hurricanes, forest fires, melting ice-caps & glaciers, for example. Choose your own disaster from wherever you are in the world and ask yourself, how do these fit into your ‘BIG PICTURE? Theology has always had to encompass the concept of disasters.

 

Truth Is

Truth is, most people are sick before covid reaches them, and life has become dangerous again even without the epidemic or endemic violence. Dangerous to our good health in the rural areas, dangerous to our mental health in the cities. The treating of symptoms leaves many people sick not cured, and covid is merely picking on the sick first and striking them down, killing them. How un-American, how incorrect politically!

 

Collective Bad Choices.

I explain it this way: The Almighty seems to have built into His creation a specific sort of wisdom, wise choices for  happy life one might almost call them, and we have ignored them consistently as long as we have recorded history, and made foolish choices

Life is not random despite apparent evidence to the contrary. It is lived as a constant stream of cause and effect decisions we all make affecting our collective and individual futures. When the choices are personal they only affect a small circle of people in addition to oneself, but when they are larger like choosing to go to war the consequences are disastrous. Additionally all those small choices add on to each other, with growing consequence, until they too may be disastrous for the community, like Covid. And then add the consequence of attempting to correct a bad choice by resorting to another bad choice in compromise.

 

Freedom of Choice

The point of this is, The Almighty gives everyone freedom to choose good or bad for himself and others

Frame for yourselves your own examples of our continuing folly, they are there for everyone who looks for them -- let him who has eyes to see and ears to hear, see and hear.

 

September Fires

This September we all in California learned of something new to worry about; our air quality. It had seemed that although air quality in cities had been bad for decades most of the time, no one had really bothered about it because we all were concentrating on global warming. This was the year we all started worrying about our air quality again, when in almost all of the habitable parts of California the index level reached 395 -- hazardous. For weeks, and nowhere to escape, no alternative to staying inside, everyone  locked down. Then came the realization that oh by the way poor air quality is a risk factor for covid.

 

A Better Choice?

Someone wrote of the Beatitudes that it is one who has these qualities listed in the Beatitudes who is genuine 24 carat gold Christian.....the real thing.......and all we lesser mortals are an alloy of something else mixed with the gold. That is why His life is an example for us to follow. The Jesus teaching to live out is the out working of wisdom woven into the warp and weft of creation. But beware, following may get you executed for sedition too.

 

November Elections

Election day is this month, and both political parties in a foment of radical convictions. Riots were a nightly battle between law enforcement and the left, in Portland and who knows how many other cities through the summer and into the fall. Probably reinforcing republicans notions about a second round of stimulus funding. Of course emptying the jails in the west --no deterrent left -- just might have had something to do with it all, together with talk of de-funding the police. So, go ahead, choose between the heartless and the lawless, I'm English don't you know, and Brexit is a higher priority.

 

Covid Thanksgiving

We’ve been in trouble for almost a year

It came like a comet from nowhere

Made us fearful, disrupted our lives

Interrupted our plans for the future

Played havoc with work and employment

We wish it was over and done with

So we all could get back to our games

But now we enjoy our not working

Just wish it was all without risk.

Of course a vaccine is the answer

To makes us all feel we’re secure

But when will we have it, we wonder,

Not sure we believe that it's safe yet

It’s just frustrating with or without one.

 

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