Notes From My Knapsack 6-11-20

Notes From My Knapsack 6-11-20

Jeff Gill

 

Opening up, holding back

___

 

With the ever-loosening state "stay-at-home" orders and business restrictions for health reasons, it's easy to see the debate sorting into two polar opposites: hunker down longer, or open it up completely, now! And you can certainly find adherents of either extreme in both everyday discourse and official perspectives.

 

But on coronavirus restrictions I think a person can, and do myself have three thoughts at the same time. I don't own and operate a business, but I do have responsibilities for a faith community, and the question of "opening up" has gnawed at people like me almost every day since mid-March, for congregations as much as commercial establishments.

 

What I've never felt was the either/or angle on this. It just hasn't seemed like all or nothing, even if that's what social media and cable news can make you think.

 

There's what the state restrictions officially are, and yes, churches are exempted from most of them, but even there we have strongly urged recommendations from the officials, along with what are mandated guidelines for comparable buildings and events. So I keep that in mind.

 

Then there's what I personally think. That's complicated, and changes over time, but I have my own developing sense of what's absolutely necessary, what's helpful, and what's probably not needed . . . in my opinion. There are websites and databases I trust, and information sent me by well-meaning friends and associates which I reserve the right to view skeptically. But it's all, on a certain level, just Jeff's opinion. Which is just that, opinions and not facts, and they're part of how I adapt my own behavior, but not an iron rule for all.

 

The third is how I handle the previous two categories in light of my immediate official setting, which has its own demographics and physical limitations. What I'd do if I were in a different building layout, or with a different audience in terms of age and other factors, is beside the point. We are a particular faith community in a specific structure, and the layout is what it is.

 

Given those three intertwined lines of thinking, I can perfectly well celebrate and encourage some churches doing things quite differently than I am recommending or practicing in my own situation. Just because one faith community is open and operating and another isn't doesn't mean one has to think the other is wrong, and vice versa. I've seen and heard some recklessness that worries me, but mostly people are being cautious, and careful, and we'll all watch the data over the next few weeks and see what rises or falls.

 

And I may think later I was too cautious in this season. That's perfectly possible. But that prospect is far less worrying to me than later wishing I'd been more careful, and realizing after it was too late I'd helped harm others by my haste. It's a larger, slower moving version of the internal debate I have every time I push hard on my accelerator in the car. Rarely do I think later "drat, should have floored it." That's where I'm at right now.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he tends to drive pretty close to the speed limit. Tell him where you are drawing lines and taking precautions at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.