An Encounter with Mr. Covid

We finally found a church that we want to attend. Unfortunately it's an over an hour away and in a direction that we almost never go and has never appealed to us. We don't like the drive and the culture changes a bit over that way. Our entire area could be characterised as Trump country, with some areas voting for him in the seventy and eighty percentile range, but this town has always been on the extreme. Even during the peak of Covid, the town in question always had the highest counts and was the most recalcitrant to any kind of mitigation efforts. We just don't like the place much but we found this church that (all things considered) has been somewhat encouraging.

On the first Sunday we attended we were notified that a particular family was out sick. The next Sunday they were back and were very eager to meet with and talk to us. In the course of the conversation I learned that actually they were still sick and had some sick people at home. Oh boy, I thought. Well, hopefully we can evade it.

By Tuesday night several of us were sick. In fact I was sicker than I've been in many years. Several days into it I was curious and we decided to make use of some Covid tests we had. And sure enough, we got it, we tested positive. After three years of avoiding it, all it took was one trip to Trump-town and wham!  

It felt like: Hi, welcome to our church. Here's a bulletin and some Covid.

Feeling rather dubious about the whole situation, I was poking around on the Internet trying to learn a bit more about some of the people in the congregation and I found the man who I personally blame for passing it to me and my family. I was concerned because some of the Christians in the area have attended not just Trump rallies, but have even been present at some of the militia-type protest events and the like. I won't congregate with such people or commune with them, and as such I wanted to see if I could find out a bit about some of these people. Thankfully the things I did find were minor but given the context a little irritating nonetheless.

I found letters on file in which Mr. Covid is protesting the actions of now former Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf. Essentially he's complaining about regulations which (according to Mr. Covid) inhibit economic prosperity.

I'm sure glad that this was so important to him – a real ethical imperative it would seem. But caring for your fellow congregants and neighbours apparently is not. He's worried about regulations that might reduce the profits of gas companies and things like that. Well, I have a question? What about my profits and my economic prosperity? His utter lack of basic decency and neighbourliness got me sick and I missed almost an entire week of work – I would have missed even longer except for the fact that no one is present where I'm currently working. I'm all alone. Otherwise I would have had to stay away longer because ultimately I returned to work while still sick. I lost a considerable amount of money having to stay home and miss the days I did. Over three weeks later I still have a cough that I cannot shake and am miserable.

It's another case of ethics being turned upside down – of straining at a gnat and swallowing the camel. I don't care if gas drillers have to pay more fees. They're making millions off of resources that effectively should belong to the public anyway. It's a travesty if not a crime. But this is what he's concerned about. Once again it's a case of thought processes and ethical evaluation being shaped more by the likes of Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson than the New Testament.

I can forgive. I have to, but it will be hard to respect. It's kind of like relations I have that were total parental failures who raised brat children – who are now dysfunctional adults and even worse parents. At gatherings when they start going on about parenting or doling out advice, I literally walk away from them. I can't listen to it. It's too farcical and ridiculous. I care about them, will do anything for them, but I don't respect them and won't listen to them – especially when it comes to things like child rearing, marriage, or Church.

In the case of the Covid family at church even though I am 99% certain we got the sickness from them, I have to leave that tiny modicum of doubt and thus charity. I also have to consider that they may not have known it was Covid and like much of the public remain utterly ignorant about the basics of things like germs. In some cases it's not a near-malicious indifference but rather a rank ignorance and a failure to grasp even basic concepts. As I have previously said, I saw incredible things during the height of Covid. I saw people pulling down their masks to sneeze. I saw cashier's pulling down their mask to lick their thumb in order to count money and the like. It was very clear to me that many people (maybe even most) just don't have basic concepts of personal hygiene and what is required to not get sick and to not spread it to other people.

I have a hunch though that were it all to emerge he might say something like, "Well, we all just have to get it at some point anyway," or something to that effect. At that moment I will have to walk away and find someone else to engage. I wouldn't want to say something that I would later regret.