Love God or Else

 I want to open with a quote from Lorna Harris – someone with whom I share my life every day:

I completely sympathize with those who are done with Covid. I am done with winter. It’s been miserably cold here for days. And it is freezing cold like this every single year. I ‘m not able to go out. Well, I can go out, but I have to put on my winter coat, a scarf and hat, my winter boots, maybe long johns and/or snow pants and of course mittens. This is just too much. I have a right to my freedom from winter. I am going out today and wear just a T-shirt and shorts. It's my personal choice. Winter doesn’t exist for me. And no one gets to order me around on this issue, but if I get frost-bite or pneumonia, I do expect, as my right, the best in medical care.

This was a comment that Lorna made on a Globe and Mail on-line article which talked about people who had, “had enough of COVID.”  Lorna was worried that people would take what she said literally and not as a satirical comment on this laissez faire attitude to COVID restrictions.   These people just want to get back to a life without restrictions such as wearing masks, or showing proof of vaccination status or whatever.  Lorna skewered that reasoning – if you can call it that – beautifully by showing how illogical that way of thinking is.  Just because we are tired of all the restrictions and constraints on our day to day lives, it doesn’t change the situation we are in.  To put it another way, “COVID doesn’t care.”

I must admit that I find that I have very little patience for people who take that attitude.  On the one hand, I can understand that people want to get their lives back and to be able to live without these constraints and restrictions.  Many people have been affected by the COVID pandemic rules to a much greater extent than I have been.  Indeed, as a strong introvert there are aspects of staying in my small corner that I enjoy.  I do not have young children that are being home-schooled at times.  I don’t know how I would cope with that.  I am retired so I haven’t had to deal with COVID restrictions at work.  So, on reflection I can sympathize with people who are completely fed up with the restrictions.

However, this desire to escape regardless of the impact on others and society in general are what I see as dangerous indications of what is becoming a much more prevalent attitude in our culture today – me first and foremost and to hell with others.     It is one that goes completely against the great commandment of Jesus Christ, to love your neighbour – or to give it in full:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  This is the first and great commandment and the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.

The challenge for this commandment – and it is definitely a challenge – is that it seems easier to hate than to love.  It seems natural for us to hate the Other – whoever is different from us and whom we see as a threat to our way of living.  I can only say that as a Christian, I am called to follow that Great Commandment and love not hate. 

In closing, I will turn to my go-to guy in song, the saint of song, Leonard Cohen:

Let's talk of love not hate,  things to do: it’s getting late, there’s so little time and  we’re only passing through.  

Let us be blessed to talk of love on our journey.