US
Written in response to the “us vs the virus,” “us vs God,” and “us vs others” narratives I have been hearing.”
This is not about us.
It is about US
This virus doesn’t see you—
not the real you.
We are just one more place
to hang out.
A possible host
offering hospitality.
It is not our enemy
nor our friend.
It has no heart
no capacity
for compassion.
It has no head
for the numbers
of lives
it decimates.
It has no will
except to live
and reproduce.
This virus is not a sign
from an angry God.
It is not
a just retribution
for perceived sins—
not a Biblical plague,
not a flood of destruction,
not an end of days.
Back in the days
such past perceptions
of prior events
by ancient prophets
and peoples
made sense.
That was the best
they could divine
at the time.
But in this fullness of times
God has revealed
Their heart and soul
through scientific exploration
and through Jesus, our Christ,
Their beloved, shining son—
as a god who is not
a respecter of persons.
As a god of forgiveness
not retribution.
A god who turns
the other cheek
after being struck down.
Who gives his cloak
to those who steal his coat.
Who willingly walks
another mile
with those who forced
him to walk the first.
Who loved his enemies
by seeking to heal
those who despitefully
used and abused him.
Who restored the ear
of the soldier who
took him captive
for torture.
Who forgave those
who condemned and
caused his crucification.
Who forgave his friends
who betrayed him.
Who commanded us
to forgive everyone
forty times seven
and judge no one.
Who, when asked who sinned
to make a man blind,
replied “no one.”
Who worshipped with
the neglected and rejected.
Who sat and dined with “sinners”
rather than the Scribes,
Pharisees and Sadducees.
Who is the only one
who can tell
the wheat from the tare.
Who said They send
the same rain and sunshine
on the just and unjust.
Who asks us to consider
the fowls of the air
and the lilies of the field
and how they are clothed.
Who created this community—
this living classroom called earth—
giving it and humanity
the agency of evolution.
Who lived, loved, healed,
suffered,
atoned for what we could not,
died,
and lived again
that we might live
again,
in the now.
Who asked us
simply
to follow Him.
Does ANY of this sound
like a harsh and vengeful God
who would punish with plagues
and storms and fires and floods
and locusts and earthquakes?
Or is this the god of agape?
A love so wide and deep
it causes Them to weep
with every coronavirus victim
and for everyone
who loses one
they love.
Who feels for us
in our fears,
our losses,
our sufferings,
our tears.
Who, because of what
He suffered
knows first hand
how we feel
and how to give us faith
in Their and our ability
to nurture and heal
and access our
divinity.
Unlike God,
this virus
does not discern
the righteous
from the wicked.
Unlike God
this virus does not know
your name
or the name of
your loved ones.
It is like the weather:
without will,
without intention
to harm
yet sometimes harms
in ways that irrevocably
change our conversations,
our connections.
Our consciousness
of what matters.
Of who matters.
This is about US.
The US of God, His earth
and you and me
and them.
All of us.
Jay Griffith, April 2, 2020
