Is it Just Me?

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to chat with a man in our community. He is eighty years old, barely, but could easily be confused with someone fifteen years younger. As an active member of the community, he regularly engages in all sorts of social activities, which include interacting with people of all ages, not just those in his age bracket.

As we talked, he kept his distance.

I don't think - no, I know - this is not what he desired. The age group of baby-boomers/greatest generation was built on personal, connected, face-to face interaction, and to be told to self-isolate, or to quarantine is about as debilitating as bashing the computer modem to death and telling teenagers to call their friends on the phone, go outside and play.

He said, "This whole thing, I feel like everything that is important to me has been ripped away from me." First by the government, then by his church.

The subtle but unintended implication of the governments directives and the church's 'desire to take care of the most vulnerable...'

Is that we have inadvertently made some elderly more vulnerable. The eighty-year-old man didn't say this, but I could see it in his eyes:

It's like the rest of the world is treating us as if we have the virus and they're trying to avoid us.

The elderly and the vulnerable are all too aware that they are at risk, but by singling them out for isolation, in some ways that's similar to what happens on National Geographic outdoor documentaries when the oldest and the youngest are separated from the herd. Very quickly, they can be singled out and left worse for wear.

Which is why the 'herd' needs to be protecting the vulnerable in our communities by consistently bringing them along on the journey through these difficult times. We can't assume that they are able to access social media and scroll through their posts and memes to see how valuable they are. We can't assume that they are appreciating the self and social isolation by the 'healthy' members of society. We can't assume that they are even able to go to the shopping stores to purchase their daily bread (not that there is much left on the shelves anyway).

The Bible consistently tells us who we should be looking out for in times of crisis: the widow, the orphan and the poor. The stranger, the outcast, the one who thirsts for a different life.

At this moment in the world's orbit around the sun, we should consistently be looking for ways to walk with people upon this isolated journey and find connection. Here is where we find a healthy community working through the pandemic.