Covid: Never Again

Fool me once…

A quick trip to the grocery store the other day turned into a wild flashback when I saw two people walk by in face masks… then another… then two more. In total, I spotted eight people in a store that was not all that busy. They were probably more than 1/3 of the clientele. That’s a pretty high percentage, for the second half of 2023.

What was going on?

As a non-news watcher I had to run a search to see. Turns out the news is dialing up the rhetoric again. Reports are starting to surface that lockdowns and masking may be coming back, with the receipts seemingly backing up the reports.

Maybe the reports are wrong, and wearing a mask will remain merely a personal preference. But it’s possible they aren’t.

So, just in case, I’m going to get in front of it now: I’m never going back under lockdown or a mask mandate again.

I will not allow myself to be locked away from the assembling of the saints. I will not be prevented from having friends and family over. I will not put on a mask that does not work as advertised. (Just ask glasses-wearers if the droplets stay in the mask). I will not keep my mouth shut in an effort to keep the peace.

“But don’t you love your neighbor?”

First of all, we can stop abusing that verse any time now, and the sooner the better. Second, as with most virtue signaling, what seems like loving your neighbor on the surface is actually the worst thing for them.

With 2020 hindsight, we know now that complying wasn’t the way to love our neighbor. Instead, loving our neighbor would have meant saying “No” when they were being lied to, or when they were being prevented from sitting with dying loved ones, or when they were forbidden from holding funerals while George Floyd received 3 state funerals with thousands in attendance, or when they were being turned away from life-saving screenings and preventive care, or when their businesses and livelihoods were being destroyed, or when they were being forced to take a shot with questionable science to keep their jobs or participate in society, or when they were being cut off from their church family while simultaneously being told they should gather in the streets with thousands to protest, or when their children were being isolated from their friends and stunted socially and academically, or when… you get the picture.

Should we ever go down that road again, whether for Covid or any other government-mandated, fear-driven reason, we will say no. We aren’t excused for it, but we can’t be too harsh on ourselves as last time caught all of us on the wrong foot and the lies came so fast and furious that it was very hard to keep up (remember “two weeks to slow the spread?”). There will be no excuse should there be a next time.

“Why does it affect you if people wear masks?”

In one sense, it doesn’t. They can put whatever they want on their face. What does affect me and everybody else is the populace’s willingness to buy the narrative. Buying the narrative had and continues to have severe, deadly consequences (listed above). Viruses don’t just disappear because you behave right. Healthy people should not be treated as though they are sick.

I do not want to be lied to, I don’t want my fellow citizens to be lied to, and I don’t want to be forced to live by the lies my fellow citizens have bought into.

But what about Romans 13?

“Render to Caesar.” My face, my worship, and my veins aren’t Caesar’s.

Across the board, I will resist any and every overreach that may come our way, but that goes double for any attempt to disrupt the work of the church.

I don’t care if it’s a much-hyped new variant.

I don’t care if it’s the long-rumored climate lockdowns.

I don’t care if it’s smallpox or some other sickness with a far higher fatality rate.

I will not stop gathering with my brothers and sisters to worship my Lord and share the body and blood of Christ.

We do not gather because we think it’s “safe enough” to do so at present. We do not gather because the government has said it’s fine for now. We do not gather because the culture currently thinks it’s ok to do so. As we’ve seen, all of those things can change. And if they do, it should not affect us since those aren’t our reasons for gathering in the first place.

We gather because Jesus Christ deserves our presence and worship, and our church family is owed our dedication and service. That will not change. I will never, ever be locked out of worship again.

And if ebola or some other mass extinction threat runs through the populace and God sees fit to let it take me and my family because we gathered for worship, so be it. God gives and God takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Draw the line in the sand

There are those who saw through it all from day one last time, and we should all commend and thank them for helping us see the light. But that was a rather small camp of folks.

As the aisles of Aldi showed, there are still hordes of people who are on board with the narrative.

Finally, there is a third camp, to which I belong. I was one of many caught off guard in the beginning. It took me a little while to see what was going on and to get up courage to take steps to push back. But once my eyes were opened, I can’t un-see what I’ve seen. There are likely millions of us in that camp.

If you are in that camp and will never comply again, I hope you’ll share this article.