A Year of Loving our Neighbors

 perhaps a re-framing can redeem this Covid year, 

or at least help us be resilient enough to keep on until we reach the healthier time we all hope for.

 

         Right off the bat, let’s admit the entire last year, our extended Covid year that started back in 2020 and has yet to end—has been awful, right!

         It’s been hard on everyone.

         While all have felt it, the pain and suffering has fallen unevenly.

         Yes, there have been bad actors: toilet paper hoarders, price gougers, people spreading false information… all that.

         We’ve seen a lot of people at their worst
—in fact we’ve experienced a whole societies where everyone is simultaneously anxious
—simultaneously stuck in a Judger frame
—collectively should-ing as well… 
think about it, 
has a day went by when you’ve not thought so and so should do this or that?
Or, alternatively, has a day passed when you’ve not turned that same impulse in upon yourself and fixated on what you should have done, but didn’t…

         People have acted in ways that their 2019-selves would not have believed possible.

         

         And so, in the face of such a year, let’s try this on for size, 
a reframing of the entire year:

--this last year has been a year of loving our neighbor.

         

-We’ve been hand washing, physical distancing, and mask wearing… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-Senior Hours at the Supermarket was created… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-Teachers, students, and parents flipped to virtual learning without warning and then were left in limbo, but kept on anyhow… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-Doctors and nurses confronted a new disease, figured out how to keep people alive on the fly, improvised protective gear for themselves and their patients, and generally were asked to do the impossible and carry all us civilians through hell… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-We’ve endured empty parking lot funerals… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-Essential workers have sacrificed more than any society should ask of them…
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-We all changed all our routines, closed stores, and made significant modifications to all our vocations for the sake of safety… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-Food pantries met the challenge of double and even quadrupling of clients, and so many were generous and so many needs were met… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-When households got exposed and quarantined, neighbors—even neighbors that didn’t like the quarantined person, pitched in to keep them fed and afloat for their 14 days… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-We deferred travel, even significant trips… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-So many of us have stayed away from parents and grandparents and friends and significant others and miss them so much, and they missed us back… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-Museums and other tourist destinations opened themselves up online in unprecedented fashion and artists of all sorts have offered so much to the general public for free, to make lock downs bearable… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-Various national science agencies shared information with their foreign counterparts as never before, the virus knew no border so the work for a cure didn’t either… 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

-Countless people stayed up at all hours of the night online to secure vaccine appointments for the elderly and endangered…. 
because this is a year of loving our neighbor.

 

         This year… 
I can’t fix this year… 
I can’t redeem this year… 
but maybe Christ’s command, “Love one another” Can re-center our experience of it so we can see the best of it, 
reframe it in a way that we can see where, sometimes unknowingly, Christ’s command was heeded, 
experiencing, even in the shadow of this year, the Humility, Love, Service, and Friendship Christ embodies and offers to us all.

Amen.