The COVID-19 pandemic is asking questions of us all individually and as a society. May I encourage you to take 10 minutes and watch this video from Christianity Explored Ministries, which was shared with me recently, in which we are asked questions about our spiritual health...
None of us would feel happy about it if somehow it were possible for others to see what we are really like beneath our masks. Imagine if you had a little screen on your forehead on which someone else could read exactly what you were thinking about - like a Twitter feed, constantly updating with the latest thought to cross your mind! It is a sobering, even chilling thought because even in our best moments there are things that flit across our minds that we would never want to see the light of day. And in our worst moments? What about those harboured, dwelt upon bitternesses?
Quite early on in the pandemic, I saw a news report about medical staff on a ward treating coronavirus patients. The staff had become deeply concerned that their personal protective equipment was doing more than isolating them from the highly contagious virus but was also 'depersonalising' them when they interacted with the patients. Rather than seeing the concerned face of a caring nurse or doctor, patients were seeing gowns, goggles, visors and facemasks, like something in a laboratory or in a science fiction movie...
Most of us have been spending most of our time at home during these lockdown weeks, obeying the instruction to 'stay home'. Over the years, I've moved a number of times and made my home in a number of places but have not always felt 'at home'. As the saying goes, 'home is where your heart is' and I know that when I have felt most at home it has been because my heart has been in it, I've been sure of being in the right place for the right reason. Jesus raises an important question about our hearts. We say, home is where your heart is and Jesus asks us, but where is your heart?
I tend to be quite careful about where I get news from. Even so, sometimes I get a view into the confusing world of rumour, conspiracy, fake news, disinformation, gossip and relative 'truth' that characterises so much of what attracts people's attention today. The present coronavirus pandemic is fertile soil for a bewildering variety of 'stories' to take root in and grow. There are layers and angles and interpretations, debates and arguments and what sounds plausible to one sounds ridiculous to another...