This past week has been one of spectacular beauty and color as the southern spring awakens. What a contrast to the news and the solemn tone when shopping the empty aisles in the grocery store, as I did yesterday evening. I know that not everywhere in the country is experiencing the same excellent weather this as I write this, but in the deep south, where I call home, we are, in the words of ee cummings, in Just- spring.
And while I didn’t see any goat-footed balloon men, the cherry trees are whistling their white and pink snow, dusting the sidewalk on one of my favorite walking paths with every breeze. And the azaleas, hallmarks of the south, are suddenly decorating the sidewalks with a kaleidoscope of red, pink, purple and white. Cool mornings gave way to warm spring afternoons and the nearly constant rain of winter has been replaced with azure skies.
In word, this week has been… perfect.
How ironic. Because as we know, all is not well. To the casual observer, the one from Mars that doesn’t have a clue what’s really going on, it could all look pretty idyllic. If she took my walk this morning, for example, she’s see luscious green parks full of joggers, dog walkers and couples strolling about in the morning sun.
But then walk into a store, like I just did to buy some allergy medicine (not all things about spring are so glorious!) and she’d be confronted with an eerie reality of empty aisles and shelves, caterpillar like check out lines taped into 6 foot sections, and other improvisations reminding us that there’s a virus ready to kill us.
And while the coronavirus is indeed bad – I don’t want to get it myself and I certainly don’t want anyone else to – the reality is that we’ve got a much worse virus that’s already killing us. Of course, that’s the virus that pretty much never get’s called out in the media or presidential politics; the virus I’ll call GEN-3.
For me, the contrast between a beautiful spring week and the reality that in the middle of it is a very real and very dangerous virus provides an object lesson about the reality and pervasiveness of our own sin. The similarities are, I think, worth chewing on. Here are some of them:
The way things look isn’t the way things really are.
That’s as true in marketing and social media and individuals and families as it is in my springtime morning walk. And I think many of is intuitively know this whether we want to acknowledge it or not. We love our façades and will do almost anything to maintain them!
The beauty is real.
The spring day is no less glorious because there’s a virus. People are no less made in God’s image even though they are corrupted by sin. Our capacity for evil doesn’t negate our capacity for virtue.
The virus is real.
It is really spreading and it is really killing people. The virus doesn’t just infect a person, it infects their relationships, their communities and their way of life. And sin’s malignant tentacles metastasize into everything it touches. And yet we all have this remarkable capacity to make appearances look good on the outside when things are so very wrong on the inside. No one need look very far to see this in communities, businesses, families and yes, even the mirror.
We respond.
There’s a spectrum of responding to the virus that’s analogous to our response to sin. It’s not a big deal. I’m not infected. It doesn’t really affect people like me. I’m scared to death of it. Ignore it and go on with life. Tolerate it, because that’s just what we have to do. Get angry about it. Go on spring break and party. Try to adhere to all the guidelines. Stay inside and don’t interact with anyone. That list can keep going.
And then we institutionalize and forget.
We begin to construct our lives in such as way as to avoid the effects. We implement measures. Limit our activities. Change our lifestyle. Take a number at the store. Horde toilet paper. Pass legislation. Implement new guidelines. Develop a vaccine. And eventually those constructions go from being an inconvenience to becoming a new normal and eventually institutionalized into the fabric of society at which point we’re desensitized to why we do what we do, ignorant and indifferent.
We have met the enemy and he is us.
This made me think of a quote by Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly: “Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle. There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us. Forward!”
I’ll close my thoughts with the same reminder Haymitch Abernathy gives Katniss in Catching Fire, “Remember who the real enemy is.”
It’s not the coronavirus.