Faith Works 4-24-21

Faith Works 4-24-21

Jeff Gill

Freedom isn't free; sometimes, it's a tie that binds

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One commentator said this past week that our social messaging ought to be 100% "you should get the vaccine, wait two weeks, then go live your life. The vaccinated should be actively discouraged from wearing masks, etc. Again, if they get the virus, it will be mild." His argument, which I think is worth considering, is that we're likely to hit a wall at around 60-65% of full vaccination soon, and the only way we're going to get people in that last 35% to get vaccinated is if we make it clear the vaccine is a ticket to "living your life" as in "without face coverings."

Again, he may be correct about that: I expect we will see rates of new vaccinations slow this week, and then come to a near-stop as we cross that 60% level. I'd love to agree with him about the relative risk of vaccinated people transmitting active virus if I was sure it would get us up past 75%. But what I'm more sure of is that if those of us who HAVE been vaccinated stop wearing masks, you'll see wholesale tossing aside of mask wearing, and I think there's still a very real, quantifiable, calculable risk of additional damage from illness and indeed some "excess death" from spread within that last 30-40%. Not another 500,000, but an avoidable additional 100,000 or more. That's why I'm still wearing face coverings in public settings where distancing can't be consistently maintained, like grocery stores and in school buildings and other gathering spaces. 

I suppose the counter-argument could be made that 100,000 deaths of at-risk, un-vaccinated individuals is both a question of their choices not to vaccinate (true, for some) and a utilitarian balance of how many billions lost in economic activity versus those 100,000 fatalities . . . although I'm at this point thinking more about the follow-on impact of getting COVID with lung damage and other lasting physical effects we're still figuring out, for that more than 100 million Americans still unprotected by vaccine. 500,000 people who lose a few years off their lifespan from COVID impact on their bodies later is a utilitarian calculation that might be more economically damaging than 100,000 additional deaths among people in high risk categories who've not been vaccinated.

So it's a balance of those two hypotheticals for the policy makers to sort out: will telling people they can completely dispense with masking and distancing after getting vaccinated get us up past 75%? It might, it might not. Or will doing that lead to general disposal of face coverings, triggering another new spike of illness and death among at risk populations? That's my concern, but I'll admit we don't know that for sure, either.

We all WANT to stop having to mask & distance in our social gatherings. That's the only thing I know for sure. But in balance, I'm going to keep wearing my post-vaccination face coverings . . . for the good of others. As a good example, as a team player who wants to see as many come through this uninjured as possible. Saying that even social pressure to do so is a "risk of our civil liberties" I think does cognitive violence to what the common good really is in a free society.

And I have to say I worry about the witness, the public example of what religious faith means in practice, of churches that have said — legally, I will add in fairness — they will dispense entirely with distancing or even encouraging face coverings, let alone returning to congregational singing and even social gatherings let alone seated group meals. What exactly are we saying as faith communities when we jump into that way of being church, which understandably is where most of us really want to be?

Yes, I'm aware of Hebrews 10:25, and the exhortation for us in "not giving up meeting together . . . but encouraging one another." I also hear a great deal of "we cannot live in fear" and "perfect love casts out fear" (hat tip, I John 4:18). However, that feels very near to "Do not put the Lord your God to the test," which Jesus himself says at Matthew 4:7.

For myself, I have no fear. Health-wise, or heaven-wise, Philippians 1:21 has me covered. What I believe I reasonably dread is to be the cause of stumbling, or even death, of another (see Hebrews 13:17 on that). If a little discomfort and inconvenience is the cost of discipleship and an opening to the realm of God for others, I think that's a cloth across my face I can bear.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's looking forward to being able to smile with more than his eyes. Tell him how you're working around challenges at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 4-29-21

Notes from my Knapsack 4-29-21

Jeff Gill

Killer bees are not a problem

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You would probably be concerned if I told you that we just saw 175 deaths due to honeybees and beekeeping in Franklin County for 2020; let alone that as of mid-April, there had been 60 beehive related deaths in 2021, which would put them on track for 214 fatalities this year.

Or nationally, if I told you that "In 2020, honeybees killed nearly 20,000 Americans . . . more than any other year in at least two decades. An additional 24,000 people died by suicide with a beehive. . . Beekeeping deaths in 2020 outpaced the next-highest recent year, 2017, by more than 3,600." You'd be saying something has gone seriously wrong with the normally bucolic and agriculturally wonderful practice of keeping honeybees, and that someone needed to look into how this vital aspect of outdoor life had become so dangerous, and even weaponized.

In fact, replacing honeybees and beehive and beekeeping with gun violence and gun or shooting, and you have a recent Washington Post assessment of where we're at nationally. I'm sure Agatha Christie or some other writer of cozies has figured out how to sic a swarm of generally inoffensive honeybees onto a murder victim, but I assure you it really can't be done, unless you figure out how to roll your desired target in honey and walk them up to a working hive.

Honestly, my general experience of firearms is more like how I think of beehives than as murder weapons. Another parallel I've used in discussions about firearms use and restriction is that of power tools: having a lathe or belt sander or radial arm saw in your basement or outside workshop. I grew up with all this stuff, and it's part of outdoor and rural life in most of the country. Bees pollenate crops, power tools build things you can't buy at the big box store, and guns help you manage the woodlots and hedgerows. All of them can hurt you if you misuse them, but they aren't intended for harm, they are all tools, means to useful ends.

But seriously: "Last year (2020), the United States saw the highest one-year increase in homicides since it began keeping records, with the country's largest cities suffering a 30 percent spike. Gunshot injuries also rose dramatically, to nearly 40,000, over 8,000 more than in 2017." And that was with almost no mass shootings, which get the major media attention, but are even now a very small part of the larger question at hand.

Obviously, a major difference is that a drill press can't be carried in a coat pocket, and you can't sneak one into a workplace under your coat and use it to harm or murder multiple people. You can lose a finger in it by inattention or misuse, and even die from blood loss, but it's not a weapon for killing. I grew up with three firearms in my house, but Dad had muzzleloading black powder Civil War replica rifles which an intruder could take from us and threaten to shoot us with, and we would have two minutes to laugh at them while still leaving another minute to trot out of range before they loaded and fired, assuming they could figure all that out.

What we're looking at today is a field of fire and range of implements far beyond what the Framers had in mind as they drafted the intentions behind the Second Amendment of the Constitution. We're going to have to think today more constructively about what the intention, and the application, should be in our nation today. It's not just about having beehives in the backyard anymore.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been around firearms from youth to adulthood, and thinks everyone should take Hunter Safety training even if they never plan to use it. Tell him what your solution to gun violence is at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

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Craig --

This one is a touch long, but I have time, so if you'd like me to figure out how to get 100 words trimmed, just holler. My source on the numbers is the link here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/23/2020-shootings/

Pax, Jeff