The Source of Our Strength and Wisdom

Where can we find the strength and wisdom we need when confronted by a global crisis?

This is no time for empty religious platitudes or sentimental pieties devoid of concrete steps to protect ourselves and, more importantly, those most vulnerable among us.  So where do we find the emotional strength and wisdom that is needed when confronted with a national crisis and global pandemic?  The impulse to console ourselves against our better judgement by believing pushers of misinformation that “the Coronavirus is no more dangerous than the flu” is as unwise as believing fearmongers sounding the scarcity alarm by telling us to stockpile everything from hand sanitizer to toilet paper before it’s too late.  Not that strength and wisdom are merely a matter of finding the mean between deficiency and excess, both in terms of appropriate temperament and a prudent course of action.  So, what is the source of strength and wisdom we need in order to navigate the uncertain days, weeks, and months ahead?

In a word, the source that will guide us is love. 

Make no mistake, I’m not talking about the touchy-feely, warm and fuzzy sentimentalism that is often associated with love. I am talking about the kind of love that Jesus spoke of when he said that sacred texts “hang” on the commandment to love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul, and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-40).

We have been endowed by our creator, not only with certain unalienable rights; we have also been endowed with capacities that we do not yet fully comprehend.   That being said, this is a time to remember our place in the universe.  God really IS, and although we are created in God’s image, we are not God. A humble recognition of this fact will, paradoxically, be an important first step toward the strength and wisdom that we will need.  Without the strength and inspiration inspired by God, we cannot meet the challenges before us.  Without our co-operation with God and one another, we will not meet the challenges before us.  If we are willing to co-operate with God and one another, overcoming the Coronavirus is not just possible, I believe it is inevitable.

But how does loving God lead to practical and concrete steps toward the eradication of this global pandemic?

We are called to love God, not just with our hearts, but also with our minds.  Having concluded that reason is contrary to faith, many sincere and well-meaning people have, by extension, internalized an unhealthy anti-intellectualism.  But anti-intellectualism is nothing more than willful ignorance.  The steps we need to take will require extraordinary intellectual rigor.  I thank God for the enlightenment and the recognition that reason is among the greatest of our God-given endowments. Some among us have been called to vocations in science and technology.  Some are gifted with insights into complex strategies, tactics and measures that will need to be taken to contain and reduce the spread of the virus. Prayer alone is not going to solve this social crisis, and curbing the impact it is going to have on economies, transportation systems, educational institutions and other services on which our societies depend will happen only as a result of the tireless efforts of people gifted with minds that will be stretched beyond what we formerly thought possible.

Next, we will need to vigilantly love God with all of our souls.  One need not be a person of faith to recognize that there is a “civil war” that takes place within us.  Plato allegorically illuminated that within each of us there is “a charioteer with two headstrong horses wanting to run in opposite directions.”  Reinhold Niebuhr went a step further and explained that within each person there is a powerfully self-deceptive impulse to rationalize things that are in our self-interest.  With much to lose and lives at stake, the way of love will not always be evident.  We will have to resist the seductions of simplistic thought and sentimentality, especially those that entice us to identify with some groups at the expense of others.  The only deception more powerful than individual self-interest is the nearly intractable self-deception inherent in excessive group loyalties based on race, nationality and religion.  In our efforts to protect our lives, let us pray that we will not lose our souls in the process.  And the best antidote to the powerfully deceptive rationalization of what is in our self-interest is to consider how we can love our neighbors.

Loving our neighbors as we seek to overcome the global pandemic may prove most difficult of all.  Loving our neighbors entails first that we recognize that everyone on the planet is now our neighbor.  We do not live in isolation.  Our lives intersect in conscious and unconscious ways.  From a faith perspective, a neighbor is anyone who has a need.  And love, according to sacred texts, is much more than talk and speech.  Loving God requires those who have resources to share them with those who do not (1 John 3:17-18).  One of the first steps we can take, then, is to resist the impulse to hoard items that will create a shortage of supply for others.  It will mean taking strict measures to avoid contact with the virus even if the condition of our health is such that we would experience minimal symptoms.  Taking each step (figuratively and literally) with others in mind, is a practical way of slowing the transmission of the virus and thus providing the vitally necessary time needed to find vaccines and treatments by those who are loving God (and the rest of us) with all of their minds.

The days ahead will not be easy.  As I complete this letter, it is still early enough that my children are safely in bed.  They do not yet have a sense of the danger we as a global neighborhood are facing, but with the measures their mother and I are beginning to put in place, there is a growing awareness that it is serious.  My daughter, Evie, is the most sheltered right now, but we are not sheltering her because she is the youngest.  Just a few months ago, on October 21, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.  If she is infected the outcome could be grave.

I will repeat the statement I made from the outset.  This is no time for empty religious platitudes or sentimental pieties devoid of concrete steps to protect ourselves and, more importantly, the most vulnerable among us.  So, when I say that love is the only source powerful enough to give us the strength and wisdom we are going to need to beat this thing, you can bet your life that I mean it.  I’m betting lives that are infinitely more important than mine on the power of love.