"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." - Mother Theresa
In any other year, I would be busy today preparing for Good Friday dinner. It is our annual tradition to host all the family on Good Friday. No matter what is happening in our lives, Good Friday dinner happens. This year, I planned an Australian-themed dinner, but as with everything else in this strange time - the best laid plans...
It is a sacred time in the world for many of faith. Christians are celebrating Easter. Jews are celebrating Passover. Ramadan begins in a couple of weeks. But there is no church, no synagogue, no mosque open to house the collected faithful. Whether or not you believe in any religion or even in any deity, most of us can agree this is a sacred time in the world. Spring is the season of hope as we watch the earth renew itself, proof of conquered death with each new leaf and bud. But unlike other springs, though the trees are budding and the snowdrops are blooming in the garden, I am sensing little hope in the air but the energy of fear is palpable. So much of my communication is now limited to technology - emails, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Messenger and Zoom. It's not normal. There are no hugs, no intimacies, but an endless stream of memes, rants and dire stories. There are some laughs and some pictures sharing the beauty of art and nature too but it is the ranting that jars my psyche. Otherwise kind people are posting an endless stream of complaints and judgements against their neighbours and those they meet at the grocery stores and watch in the line-ups at the pharmacy. They are posting pictures to shame people standing too closely or allowing their children to play in the closed parks or filling their supermarket carts with more than they are judged to need. And while there will always be idiots who will break the rules, no matter what they are, perhaps posting our rage and attempting to shame them is not the best way to bring them into the compliance tent.
Perhaps we would get better results if we start with the assumption that everyone is doing the best they can right now. People are afraid. Maybe the mom whose kids are playing in the park is at the end of her tether and it is safer for her kids to be in the park than it is for them to be in her home where she is one short breath from hitting them. Maybe the guy in the grocery store with the too full cart is cooking for the elderly and vulnerable people in his apartment building. Maybe the woman who is standing too close is just so lonely and isolated that she is pulled to drift into contact with another person. Maybe your uncle who keeps saying that our isolation actions are over-reactions needs to keep telling himself that because it is the only way he can get through the day. Maybe we could use our intellect and energy to figure out if there is something we can do to help, to transform their pain and fear into hope.
These are my thoughts on a day I would rather be setting the table and baking the fish to feed my family - an annual act of love. But on this Good Friday, it is an act of love to leave our table empty so that next Good Friday, we will all still be here to share our meal, to hug and laugh and love.
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