Some things call for a response. Or at least that’s what we believe. Something is going on and we need to have a comment or an action or a conversation. 

As a chaplain in a healthcare environment, I started thinking I should probably weigh in on the current health crisis. What are the best responses? What are the best precautions? What is the best advice? 

That sense of self-obligation lasted a few hours. It’s gone. Beyond suggestions I shared in January about visiting the hospital, I have no further advice or insight about the current challenge. Because the death rate from life continues to hover around 100%.

Over the past few months, I’ve been alongside several people who have died. None of them had the current illness. All of them, immediately before they died had been exposed to the same thing: life. 

You and I are currently exposed to the same thing. As a result, apparently when we least expect it (according to most of the families I talk with), we are going to end up dead.

Whew.

Now that we’ve faced that likely outcome of our current condition, we have the opportunity to reflect on what we’re going to do with the time we have left.

We could spend it arguing about who is right about this current crisis, about who caused it, about who benefits from it, about who is hurt most by it. We can argue about.

But is that really how you want to spend the time you have left?

As I said yesterday, encourage. As I said Monday, care for and about. As I said a few years back, avoid chatter.Be helpful, like Phoebe was. Notice one person and love them. Eat breakfast with Jesus. Stop worrying and seek the Kingdom.

There. Now I responded.