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I’m pretty sure God wants me to wear a mask

5/25/2020

2 Comments

 
Charles City Press, 5-26-20

Although I miss the fellowship of Sunday worship, in some ways, I actually like attending online church services from my home.

I think my wife likes it, too, because I can’t skip out on it. When local church service is going on in your own living room, on your own television, it’s hard to avoid.

The sermons are just as good. The prayers mean just as much.

Sometimes my wife says to me, “I hope you don’t think it’s strange that I sing along with the hymns.”

Not at all. Most often, I don’t sing along, although I might belt out a few phrases along with the hymns I recognize and especially like.

It’s really not that much different than when I’m actually at church. I admit, often I am just mouthing the words. I promise you I’m usually singing them in my head, and I’m pretty sure God can hear them in there, if he wants to.

That’s been our life for the last couple of months, and maybe it’s been your life, too. It’s the era of COVID-19. We are finding all kinds of creative ways to do all the things we do. In some ways, it’s been amazing, if not completely fulfilling.

Sunday worship is better inside a church building, shared with others, I won’t argue with that. The grape juice and toast in my kitchen just don’t seem the same as the wine and wafer of communion.

But ironically, there are few places in the country right now that are more dangerous than a crowded church sanctuary, and few acts more potentially lethal than Holy Communion.

Here in Iowa, churches have had the option of reopening for several weeks now, but I’m glad most local church leaders have had the common sense to not do that.

I understand the human need for fellowship, I honestly do. I just don’t understand a few national church leaders encouraging — and some of them even demanding — that churches open their doors.

These people are supposed to have our best interests at heart, but instead they are leading us into temptation.

They are encouraging us to do the things which we know are the wrong things to do. They are tempting us to do things that could bring harm to ourselves and others, in exchange for short-term convenience and faux fulfillment.

It’s not “freedom,” any more than driving while drunk is “freedom.” It’s undisciplined and irresponsible behavior.

More than 100,000 human beings have died now from COVID-19 in the United States. Cases and deaths have not gone down. They continue to rise. We can stop this, but we won’t anytime soon.

Tens of thousands of people gathered together in crowds this past weekend, very few of them practicing the necessary social distancing protocols. Almost no masks.

I saw a photo of a very pretty young woman, in one of these crowds, holding a sign in protest of wearing masks in public.

“Take your mask off, because God’s got you covered,” the sign said.

I have to tell you, if someone who knew told me that somehow wearing a hat in public might possibly save the life of just one unknown person, I would put on a hat every time I left the house.

It’s such a simple thing to do. Why is a mask different?

This pretty young woman with the sign that presumes to know the will of God, reminded me of a story.

It’s an old story, something of a fable or parable, and I first heard a version of it when I was very young, in Sunday school.

I heard it again many years later, on an episode of the television show “The West Wing.”

The modern-day parable goes something like this:

A man lived next to a river, and he heard a radio report telling him the river was going to rush up and flood, and those who lived near the river should evacuate their homes.

“I will pray to God,” the man said. “God will protect me.”

He then turned his television on, and saw a news alert, urging those who lived by the river to leave as soon as possible, because flooding was inevitable.

"I'm religious. I pray,” the man said. “God loves me. He will save me.”

He turned the television off and opened up his newspaper, which had a very detailed article that outlined the best escape routes to take away from the river, listed several places that had been set up for temporary shelter and food, and even posted a phone number the man could call if he needed aid or assistance.

The man threw the newspaper away.

"God loves me. God will save me."

As predicted, the waters rose up. His neighbor rowed by his house in a rowboat and shouted, "Hey, buddy, hop in! The whole town is flooding, you can come with me and we’ll be safe.”

The man shouted back, “No thank you! I’m not afraid. God loves me. God will save me."

Then the man heard a helicopter, which hovered overhead, and an emergency worker shouted down at the man through a megaphone.

She pleaded with him. “I’m dropping a ladder! Just grab it and we’ll take you to safety!”

The man waved the chopper away. He shouted that he was religious, he prayed, God loved him and that God will take him to safety.

The man drowned. He found himself standing at the gates of St. Peter. He requested an audience with God.

"Lord," he said, "I'm a religious man, I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did you let this happen to me?”

And God said, "I do love you. That’s why I sent you three news reports, a helicopter and a friend in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?"

There ends the lesson.

God is sending us news reports. He is sending us people who are desperately sharing information with us, pleading with us to do the right thing.

He is sending us epidemiologists, scientists, doctors, nurses and first responders, all who know ways to help us fight this disease, and slow the spread so we can protect ourselves and protect those we love — and ultimately protect them.

He is sending us volunteers, who are doing his work, trying to help us. He is sending us people who bring us food if we need it. He is sending us people to talk with us, check up on us, make sure we are physically, mentally and emotionally OK.

He is actually sending us people who can sew, who are making us masks, some of them dozens a day, by hand, right here in our own city.

He is even sending us artists and designers who can create beautiful images to put on the masks that make us look cool — or at least make us look interesting if we have to go out where there are others nearby.

He’s been thoughtful enough to send us writers and singers and entertainers — with talents that can be shared over the airwaves directly into our homes — to help keep us sane, and possibly even happy.

He has sent us amazing technological advances, so that many of us can work, teach, learn, communicate, worship and survive from the safety of our homes.

God is sending us all the tools, all the information and all the direction we need to beat this.

He has answered our prayers.

What the hell are we doing?

2 Comments

To The Much Weary

5/23/2020

0 Comments

 
​TO THE MUCH WEARY

By JAMES GROB

I'm not as strong as you are
Not as strong.
I cannot carry all that you can
But perhaps I can carry a little
So that you only have to carry a little more.

I'm not as smart as you are
Not as smart.
I cannot figure everything out
Like you can
But perhaps I can figure a little
So that you only have to figure a little more.

I'm not as good as you are
Not as good.
I cannot give my whole self to the world
The way you can
But perhaps I can give a little
So that you only have to give a little more.

I'm not as strong as you are
But perhaps I am strong enough
Strong enough.
If you can't
Perhaps we can.
0 Comments

On punishing salon owners for breaking the law ...

5/20/2020

0 Comments

 
Even if I buy the story that this person has no other alternative but to open her business in order to feed her family, which I don’t, it’s simply a matter of the basic principals of business and capitalism.

Is she the only salon owner in her community? Highly doubtful. I’m guessing that some of the other salon owners in the city have families to feed as well, and yet, they followed the rules.

This person chooses to not follow the rules, and gets away with it. So by scoffing at the law, she gains a competitive advantage over all the other salon owners who did the right thing and obeyed the law.

Somehow this person’s children are more important than all the other children in her town?

That is anti-business and anti-capitalist and anti-American. It is immoral and unethical, and anti-Christian.

Put it simply — I own a nice bar, you own a nice bar across the street from me. You follow the rules and don’t serve minors in your bar. I say screw the rules and serve anyone with the cash to pay. 

Someone calls the cops on me, the cops check it out, say yeah, I broke the rules, but I’m a good guy with a family to feed, so they’re leaving me alone.

Now you can break the rules, too, and the rules mean nothing, or you can sit there and watch me put your ass out of business.

Or, worst of all, you break the rules and the cops choose to enforce them on you while leaving me alone.

This is all completely beside the fact that the rules, in this case, were put in place in order to prevent hundreds — and possibly thousands — of people from dying a horrible, excruciating death.

If you let someone break the law, you’re hurting all the good people who obey the law. If you get away with it, it is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what our forefathers intended -- a Nation of Laws, not a nation of men, filled with favoritism to gain competitive advantage.

If you choose to break the law, and get caught doing so, you should accept the punishment. That's America. Love it or leave it. See how well your salon does in Russia or China.



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A Walk Along The Cedar

5/7/2020

0 Comments

 
Photos from a walk along the Cedar River in Charles City, taken the evening of Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at dusk.


(Photos by James Grob.)
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When the theater is on fire, you don't go to the movies

5/6/2020

0 Comments

 
When the movie theater is on fire, and the fire chief tells you that you can't go inside, he is not infringing on your civil liberties -- he's protecting your life.

He's also trying to keep you and your fellow little cupcakes-in-arms from stupidly spreading the fire from the theater to the restaurant next door, to the bakery, to the car dealership up the road and to all the other shops on Main Street.

He's also protecting the other firefighters who might have to physically go in to save you, the EMTs who might have to keep you alive, the doctors and nurses at the hospital who might have to take care of you. He's also making sure that a hospital bed and medical supplies are available for someone else who needs them.

You'll have every right to go to a movie again, you sweet little cupcake, once the fire is out and the theater is cleaned up. 

In the meantime, every minute you stand there and argue with the fire chief is a minute he could be working to make the theater safe for you to go to a movie again.
​

He's not infringing on your civil liberties, he's keeping you and all your friends alive so that we all can continue to enjoy our civil liberties.
0 Comments

Don’t stand so close to me

5/5/2020

0 Comments

 
Charles City Press, 5-5-20

Honestly, the guy would’ve been too close even if there wasn’t a pandemic going on.

I was in line at one of the local convenience stores, and everyone in there was doing their best to follow all the COVID-19 rules. Some people were wearing masks, a few were even wearing gloves, and everyone was keeping a distance from everyone else.

Well, almost everyone.

The proprietors of the business had made it easy — the floors were marked off with tape, showing people where to stand in line, six feet away from the others. I needed some cookies and some marinara sauce and something to drink, and I was waiting my turn.

I probably didn’t actually need those things, but I’d taken a walk for exercise and the walk had led me there and I figured that while I was there I’d pick up a few things that I didn’t have but wanted. So to be completely honest, this shopping trip wasn’t actually essential.

But hey, sometimes I’m a rebel.

Not as daring a rebel as the young man behind me, though. When I say, “young man,” you have to realize that I’m 52. I’d guess the gentleman was about 10 years younger than me. So I consider someone in his early 40s to be a “young man.” Your results may vary.

The young man was so close behind me in line that I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. He was a sturdy fellow, much shorter than me but barrel-chested, with a shaved head and a beard. He was holding a case of one of the more popular canned domestic malt beverages available on the market, as well as a package of what I think was beef jerky.

I disliked him immediately, not because of how he looked or anything he was about to purchase, but because he was really close. Really, really close. With each of his breaths tickling my neck, my base urge to just punch him in the throat increased exponentially.

This is unusual for me, because I’m not the type of person who punches people in the throat. I neither condone nor recommend such behavior, in any situation. It’s unkind and disrespectful, and kindness and respect are important to me.

It would’ve been so easy, though. This guy’s hands were full. He could not have blocked my punch. He didn’t seem spry enough to avoid it, especially if it came as a surprise.

The guy didn’t appear to be packing heat. I wondered if he knew karate or tae kwon do. That could be a problem for me. Maybe I should ask him. If he didn’t, I could punch him in the throat with one hand and smash the jar of marinara sauce on his head with the other. I figured the others in the shop would applaud in approval, because they had to be as annoyed as I was with this dude.

Of course, I did no such thing. Life is not a Chuck Norris movie. My mommy didn’t raise me to hit people just because they’re really annoying. I grew up in a Christian household. Aggression will not stand. Always resist the inner demons of your nature.

Plus I didn’t want to spend the night in jail for aggravated assault. And sometimes when cops arrest people like me, they hit them with a taser gun or spray pepper spray into their eyes, and I did not want to be tased or peppered. I just wanted some cookies, marinara sauce and something to drink.

So I turned to the guy and smiled, pointed to the where the floor was marked off, and in a non-threatening way mentioned something about keeping a six-foot social distance.

And he got mad, and it became clear to me that he had deliberately staked himself out that close to me because he wanted someone to say something about it, he wanted someone to confront him. He was looking for an argument — not necessarily with me — he was looking for an argument with anyone.

He loudly ranted and blustered for nearly a full minute about how the whole COVID-19 hysteria is all hype, how it’s fake, and he has his rights, and freedom, and media conspiracy, and liberals, and government oppression, and on and on and on. His rant was filled with obscenities that shouldn’t be printed in a community newspaper.

I’ve got a voice, I inherited from my dad, who inherited it from his dad. I use it rarely, but the few times I have, it has temporarily stopped time. This voice comes from the same place inside me that sometimes tells me it would be OK to punch someone in the throat.

“BACK UP!”

It echoed. It boomed. It pierced.

Then silence. The loudest silence you’ve ever heard.

It interrupted the rant. There were two other words in there, one which can’t be printed in any newspaper, community or otherwise.

Everyone in the shop heard it. So did the people out at the gas pumps, filling up their tanks.

The young man backed up. He obediently stood on his mark. He also shut up. He tried to give me an intimidating stare, but it didn’t last long. He looked down at his feet. He was embarrassed. He was meek. He was at a safe social distance.

In the post-traumatic hush now permeating the store, I paid for my cookies, my drink and my marinara sauce and went about my way.

There is no lesson here. There is no metaphor, or higher message, or clever play on words to wrap it up.

Just keep your distance, man. That’s all I ask. I shouldn’t have to explain why. Stay a few feet away from me.

Stay a few feet away from everyone.
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