It’s about Faith Not Politics

As I was out and about this week, I was dismayed (read pissed) by people who were not wearing masks and people who wore their masks on their chin or below their noses. Wear a damn mask and wear it properly (over your mouth AND nose). This is not rocket science.

I don’t care about your personal rights, political affiliation, national pride or how high you wave the flag off your house or the back of your pickup truck. Are you really so selfish, so clueless and so self-absorbed that you are willing to risk the life of others for your silly ridiculous posturing? The apparent answer is yes and it’s time to get over it.

Wearing a mask is not about politics, it’s about faith.

At the root of every major religion in the world is love for the other. In Christianity it is called agape. It means love for another, the love that desires the best for another. It means love that considers the needs of another and then acts on those needs.

Agape is the root of compassion; the unique capacity to put yourself in another’s shoes and shift your actions and feelings based on a new and deeper understanding of their situation. Imagine that you are a transplant patient or someone who is immune suppressed because of disease. People do not wear tattoos on their foreheads announcing their medical conditions, so there is no way of knowing if someone in proximity to you has special health needs. Compassion is the capacity to act in the best interest of others. Inconvenience, personal “freedom,” arrogance, carelessness, national identity and cluelessness are not theological issues; compassion is.

The loving and compassionate thing to do is wear a damn mask and wear it properly. It’s that simple. At some point individual freedom, political stance, arrogance and plain old stubbornness need to take a back seat to the love and compassion that our faith demands of us.

There is another faith component to wearing a mask; God does not save us from stupidity. There is the matter of cause and effect. If you jump off a bridge, gravity will prevail and you will go splat when you hit the water. This has nothing to do with God’s love. Be clear about this.  God’s love is unshakeable, unchangeable, immutable and never ending. This, however, has nothing to do with cause and effect.

Cause and effect are at issue with masks as well. God also does not save those harmed by the selfishness of others. If you do not wear a mask, the effect may well be that a person around you becomes very ill and possibly dies. The Omicron variant is highly transmissible regardless of vaccination status. If you are an asymptomatic carrier you are the direct cause of that person’s death. Yes, their illness and death is on you. As surely as if you took out an assault weapon and mowed them down, their death is on you. The cause (you not wearing a mask and being a carrier) and the effect (another person becoming ill and possibly dying) rest with you.

You may blah, blah, blah on about how it is the other person’s responsibility to wear a mask and stay out of dangerous places. You may BS about any number of ways that someone’s illness and possible death are not your fault. Remember, it’s about love and compassion, not excuses.

I am tired of people ranting about their rights and their individual “freedom.” This is about basic love and compassion. This is what should be guiding our behavior if we claim to be people of faith. Commitment to God and the precepts of faith come first. National identity, political party and individual “freedom” are idols we worship at our own peril and that of our sisters and brothers.

The common good is a theological issue not a political one. It is high time our faith commitments eclipse our inconvenience, personal “freedom,” arrogance, carelessness, political stance and foolhardy pride. If we fail at basic human love and compassion we are bowing at the wrong altars. If we fail at basic human love and compassion we are guilty of the worst kind of idolatry.

Wear a damn mask and wear it properly. Amen.