This Seat's Taken...
There was a scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest rides the bus for the first time. As he walks down the aisle of the bus, there are many seats that have only one person in the seat and any time it looks like he might be interested in sitting there the person in the seat slides over and says, "This seat's taken." If you are not familiar with that movie, I am sure you have seen some version of this on the screen. Some kid enters a lunch room of a new school and tries to find a seat only to be met with blank stares or all out requests to leave the table. In the end most characters end up at a table by themselves. In Forrest's case, he finds a welcome in the compassion of his new friend, Jenny.
So why mention a scene from a movie that is over 25 years old? Well, it is simple actually. I feel like I am living in that scene right now. You see, my whole life I have never quite fit in anywhere. I had friends, but I never really had a sense that I belonged to any one group. Well, maybe I belonged with the misfits? Maybe I should rethink my scene choice and move to the Island of the Misfit Toys instead. In any case, I feel like I don't fit anywhere. That is a very lonely feeling.
Over the course of the last several weeks, I have posted some items on Facebook to try to understand different sides to some major topics. What I have found is that I don't fit in to a "side" so to speak. I have basically been shunned by the side that I thought I belonged to and almost accepted by some on the other side. Now, you might be imagining in your head topics that have clear sides right now. Mask vs. No-Mask, Trump vs. Biden, MSM vs. whatever someone thinks is not MSM but still puts news out (not even sure what to call it.) But you see the issue for me is that I don't seem to have a seat in any of these topics. And as I alluded to in my last post, I am being made to feel as though it is not okay to have the "agree to disagree mentality".
Let me start with this. I identify as an Evangelical Christian. I believe that Jesus is the living Son of God who was incarnate and died for my sins. He rose on the third day and is alive and seated at the right hand of the Father. I believe that the Bible is the word of God and is God breathed. You would think that would make it easy for me to find a seat to sit in. Not true. I am so saddened by this. But I have walked away from social media over and over again feeling as though my brothers and sisters in faith do not want me to sit with them and for more than one reason.
First, I wear a mask in public (gasp!). I have several reasons for doing it. I believe that if they work I am helping stop the spread of a virus that can harm others. A virus that we don't know much about. Please don't tell me that we know a whole bunch. Like all new things (remember this is a novel virus), we are continuing to figure out more about it. Remember when it first came out? We focused on the respiratory impact. Then we discovered it could cause clotting issues. The fact is we know more than we knew months ago, but we still don't know this virus intimately. We don't know how lasting the lasting effects are. So, I wear a mask. I also wear a mask because I believe that I am supposed to be showing love for my neighbor. I believe wearing a mask shows love for those around me. I know there are some that can't wear one so I am wearing one because I can. And in the end if they find they don't work, the worst thing that happened to me is that I put a piece of cloth over my face. When I posted my question on Facebook, a few of my fellow believers are on the mask wearing side, but most fall to the side of no masks.
Do I feel the government has overstepped its authority in this? I have not settled entirely. WHAT??? You have not settled? What on earth is wrong with you? Here is my thought process... I believe we should wear them. I will wear one if I can't keep distant from people right now. I think that others should do the same but many refuse. I also understand that the government should not have too much power. I truly do. But I fail to see how this is the "start" of the slippery slope. Honestly if this is part of that slope, I feel like we have been on it for a long time. If a business tells you that you must wear shoes and a shirt you comply. You drive the speed limit. You wear a seat belt. Some cities, like my own, have rules about when I am allowed to take my garbage to the curb and when I have to pull the cans back by or I can be cited. But masks are the start of the slope? If they are part of the slop fine, but in my opinion we started that slope a long time ago. I hope that my friends that are against the masks for control reasons are not in places with HOAs... talk about too much power! I feel like they are trying to protect people while they learn more and since many are not willing to help and wait for them to learn (like I just learned that conjunctivitis is a symptom...) how do they protect people when others will not?
Now, don't get me wrong. I see potential downfalls and scary possibilities with mask wearing long term. I understand that we MUST keep our eye out on our children more. I understand that now it is harder to identify people. I have seen that it is against a CCW to wear a mask while carrying. Forcing masks makes it so they cannot carry if they want to obey that law so rights are infringing on each other there. I struggle to know how to solve that problem. But unlike some people, I am not willing to ignore that these problems exist. I am willing to admit that I have no solutions to satisfy both sides. But, I guess that is just another reason that no one wants me to sit with them.
Ready for the next biggie? I believe in the scientific process and the fact that to determine something will work is going to take time. I am not a doctor. I am not what some with call a "scientist". But guess what? I am not dumb as some people think! (I am so tired of being talked down to... really I am. I know I don't have knowledge on all things but I can process ideas. I can think through things.) It took me years to get over identifying myself by my previous profession and accept the glorious titles of Stay-At-Home Wife and Homeschool Mom. I had to learn that it was ok to identify myself that way. But before all that I earned my degree. I worked as a software engineer. I have a minor in mathematics and took math classes that some people have never heard exist. I can think scientifically. I know that it is important to have control variables. You have to remove any extraneous variables that you can. I also know from my work as an engineer that you want results to be repeatable. I love how I am seeing charts of the state with little colored dots that show how many cases per 100k people have the virus in one color. How many were hospitalized in another color. And finally how many died in a third color. The point of the chart is to show how low the death toll is. But those same people are passing around a video of a woman who "cured" 350 people (I am not willing to say she cured them given her test was not scientifically sound.). Wow! 350 people? Put that dot on your chart and you will not even be able to see it. If a medication is going to be thrown at me as a cure, it needs to be used properly, with the correct variables ruled out, placebos used, and it better be shown to help more than 350 people before I put it in my body. Repeatable results for medicine is not just 350 people and should be vetted against a placebo. Yes, I am hearing there are other doctors that are finding similar results. Great! Keep studying! Just please refrain from using the word "cure". And keep in mind that many of the people that are pushing this medication forward as a "cure" have also stated that a vaccine that comes out will not be medically sound because it is too new. I agree pushed out too fast it will not be sound. I know that the medications being put forward have gone through the FDA approval process but guess what? They still need to be shown valid and tested properly for this particular use.
[Side note: I am so very grateful to my friends on Facebook with credentials that make mine look like the dot of 350 people on that chart for speaking up and giving examples of how this all works. They have been so articulate and really stated things in manners I never could. I just wish that those who feel I am ignorant and unknowledgable took the information of these individuals more seriously.]
Guess what else.... I don't think this should have ever been a political issue. This is an illness. The entire world was involved. It became a political issue and is now highly political, but it never should have been.
Need something else to keep me from sitting in a seat? I support my church not being open. I do not feel that my right to practice my faith has been violated. Guess what? The church is not a building. The church is the people. YES, we are supposed to gather together. YES, that is important!! But guess what, I have not been asked to stop worshiping my Savior. There are countries where owning a Bible is illegal. I own several different translations. I can openly worship. I know that some feel this closing is a start to stopping us from worshiping. But here is the thing, the Bible states in Matthew 6:34, "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." I do believe that we need to be cautious and we don't want to make this permanent, however, those who follow the work of Voice of the Martyrs know that we still have so much freedom. This is where the verse from Matthew comes in. I think many are too focused on where this could go rather than being thankful where we are an just focusing on today's issues. We need to be cautious and discerning but don't start the battle before it is here because what will it gain you to do that if the battle does not come in your lifetime?
Here is the reason I support my church being closed: I believe that my pastors and elders are praying in earnest about this issue. They have been role models and guides to me for the last almost 20 years. If I did not believe that I would have left the church rather than continuing to attend. I would have looked elsewhere. I see the pastors and elders having compassion on the elderly and compromised members of our congregation. I see them wearing masks and setting examples. I see them following the laws. I believe that if they felt at all that anything we were being asked to do violated God's law they would be the first to stick up for it. These men know that they are sinners. They know where their frailties are and they will admit them and in some cases have apologized for them. I have no reason to believe that I cannot or should not trust them when they do their best to live as examples to us and take their role as religious leaders very seriously. And like many in the nation they still preach to us weekly and post on social media to encourage us during the week. They have even implemented outdoor services when weather permits to allow us to gather safely (you can even sit in the parking lot and tune in from your car to be part of it all.) They are protecting their flock.
I have not even touched any of the issues surrounding the economy. But I can assure you that it is a concern of mine. I feel terrible for some of the people during all of this. My family's income was impacted, but I am choosing to focus on the fact that we have not had to file unemployment and my heart goes out to those that who have not had the same results. Again, I see both sides to this coin and I don't have all the answers. But I feel like if I support any one point, the other side is ready to rip me apart for even agreeing that the opposing side has a point.
So why don't I just go sit with the mask wearing, Trump hating, economy closing side? Well, if you didn't catch all I said in the previous paragraphs, let me remind that I said I am an Evangelical Christian. Because of my beliefs, some will not allow me to sit at the table with them. Doesn't being an Evangelical imply that I am full of hatred, intolerance, and bigotry to that group? Don't get me wrong, as in all the cases above there are definitely examples in my life of exceptions to this rule. I have several friends in my head right now. But for some, the fact that I don't believe that the world is billions of years old makes me stupid and not worthy to sit with them. That I think we are supposed pray for and obey the authorities above us even if we disagree with them, makes them think I am loopy. Throw in the fact that I homeschool and therefore do not conform with educational norms and well I am just plain crazy! C.S. Lewis captures it in his quote:
"When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind."
The fact that I love members of the people on either other side will also make some on each side direct me away. I try to show love and compassion for people on both sides of issues (and I know that I am not perfect and have my issues and failings). I have tried so hard to agree to disagree but still show love. I refuse to be a part in cancel culture that, in my opinion, is counter to everything the Christian stands for in that it does not allow for repentance and FORGIVENESS -- it does not allow for change! No cancel culture, there goes another place to sit.
So where do I go? What do I do? Why can't I sit with my fellow believers? Well, fortunately, someone else came before me and was rejected by his family. He was ridiculed for the company he kept and the tables he sat at. He warned that if we followed him we would be too. He reminds me that he will never leave me. So no matter which seat I take on the bus or which table I sit at in the cafeteria full of cliques that I don't fit into, I won't be alone. That doesn't mean it does not feel lonely some days. C. S. Lewis reminds us that this loneliness will not even come close to the joy that I will experience later.
And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that it contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good.
I find that this whole season of time has me longing for this. And perhaps that is the point. It certainly sounds like it when you listen to John Piper's book, Coronavirus and Christ. We, the believers, were not made for this place. That seems to be the answer to my questions of why I can't find anyone to sit with. I was not made to find a seat here. I am made to find a seat at the table of my heavenly Father and until my time comes, I am not going to fit in and I should rejoice and be glad in it.
I know this will sound more like it belongs in my previous post about things I learned from my mother, but I am starting to wonder if this is not something else we should go back to... I was raised in a time when there were two things that were private/personal and were things that I was told we just didn't talk about -- your salary and who you voted for. Maybe if we went back to that and we all quietly made up our minds the media could not feed off all our musings on social media and make things like a medical problem into a political one. We all want to blame the media and they are heavily to blame. But how do you think they figure out what to write? As soon as we stop talking about an issue it stops becoming news. As long as we continue to scream and yell at each other on social media it continues to be a headline. I believe each and every one of us is partially to blame for what the media puts out there. It is like my mom used to say about bullies, "If they get a reaction out of you they will keep doing it. If you keep quiet they will stop." We continue to tell them what we think and how to divide us and they continue to use that against us.
I leave you with this graphic that I posted on Facebook a while ago...
I could draw many more circles to this picture and it would only serve to show how hard it is to find a seat to sit in these days.
Comments
Post a Comment