PROMPTED BY A YOUNG PRIEST this past weekend. All his life he'd been happy-go-lucky. He shared in his homily that recently he's been overtaken by serious anxiety and discord. He didn't quite know why. Really.
I'M SURE IT CAN'T HELP to get up in a place of faith and be inundated by a vast proclamation of fear... literally on people's faces. Mandated by faith leaders. While right up the street, based upon the same data, innumerable people gather to eat and interact without wearing masks.
My children, wife and I were the only ones that day not wearing masks in church. Not because we don't care. Because we do. We are without symptoms. Even if we were asymptomatic, it's highly questionable if we can pass it on to others. We don't care if they pass it to us.
DON'T GET ME WRONG. I understand this is a significant disease that merits appropriate concern and response. We wear masks into stores and restaurants as required. It's the elevation to a state of near domination I'm concerned about. It's not inconsequential that "dom" is the same Latin root meaning "LORD."
I HAVE A LORD AND SAVIOR, AND HIS NAME IS NOT "COVID"!
WHILE THE EVIDENCE SUGGESTS that masks help in the very rare instances of the right product rightly worn, the effect is about as great as a swimsuit keeping you from pee in the pool.
WE OUGHT TO BE CONCERNED WHAT MASKS ARE DOING! Causing discord. Anxiety. Depression. Suicide. Divorce. Need I go on? (GO: Study shows how masks are harming children) Masks mask our humanity. They create barriers. They diminish the human to human connection that is essential to what it means to be human. Our humanity is compromised. It is not normal. It proclaims fear. Unnecessarily. (GO: The Underlying Spiritual Battle Behind Mass-querading)
Out of concern for very few losing their health (who shouldn't be there) we are an entire society losing our humanity.
HAD THE PRIEST GREETED PEOPLE after mass, I surely would have found an appropriate way to see if he would have allowed me to pray with and for him. To renounce the inner anxiety and discord from so many exaggerated and lying whispers of the Enemy. I would have prayed for an outpouring of transforming and healing grace, for him to embrace his appointing and anointing to be a beacon of much needed hope. Of faith decisively triumphing over fear.
A FEW DAYS AGO I kept my long-standing commitment to play cribbage with a dear, 90 year old friend. He and his wife, suffering from dementia in this last episode of their lives, are confined to a few rooms no larger than our living room. He wouldn't hear of me keeping my mask on. How heartbroken I was to hear him share of how he's been abandoned by friends and family. His own children and grandchildren. So important to him at this time of his life! They've all left him literally alone. With tears and no little amount of vitriol he stated: "I don't give a damn if I get it and die! I want to live while I'm still alive!"
ON ANOTHER OCCASION, HOW MOVED WE WERE to be in the company of other dear friends, celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary, surrounded by dozens of family and friends, so many over age 60. None wearing masks. Which is to say, all living (without reason otherwise) in the ordinary freedom for which God has made us!
THUS,
GIVEN THE AMBIGUITY of asymptomatic spread (after extensive research by even WHO),
GIVEN THE VERY NEGLIGIBLE risk of serious illness and death for those who do get it (particularly among those without preexisting conditions, statistically inconsequential among all others, particularly the young),
GIVEN THE REASONABLE norm that only those in such circumstances should take extraordinary measures,
GIVEN THE GREAT INCONSISTENCIES of not having to wear a mask in restaurants vs. (say) churches,
GIVEN THE GENERALLY NEGLIGIBLE verdict on the preventative nature of masks,
AWARE OF THE EXTRAORDINARY cost masking and quarantining is having on diminished immunity, social, spiritual, and mental health...
WHEREVER POSSIBLE I WILL NOT contribute to perpetuating a CULTURE OF FEAR.
I WILL PROCLAIM FAITH.
WHEREVER POSSIBLE I WILL NOT WEAR A MASK.
