A blossoming "fruit" tree on our grounds. One of the first days of summer provided perfect sun and sky as background.
Even while we mourn the deaths of thousands whose lives are
taken by COVID 19, at the same time these very deaths are moving medical
professionals to search for a long-term fix that will end this pandemic. So many of us are living today because of
so-called miracle drugs and vaccines that owe their existence to skillful and
committed scientists. I benefited
myself from penicillin, a drug that first became available only in the years
that I needed it to cure my rheumatic fever.
Had I been born and contracted the disease just twenty years earlier, I
may not have lived past my eighth birthday.
With this experience I am naturally optimistic. Our optimism, however, is often
challenged. The predictions of
treatments that will save the lives of cancer patients have often been too
optimistic. And the nature of this new
virus may be such that it will always be ahead of our ability to control
it. That being said, we have proven our
ability to control other such viruses.
But my optimism also has its source in hope. As a Christian I understand the scriptural
record of Jesus’ healings as a revelation of God’s hopes for humanity. I think of the revelation in this way: God
understood that we ourselves, created in God’s image, had the ability to better
care for one another. If Jesus knew
nothing about medical science, he shared with his heavenly Father in this hope-filled
understanding. He shared the Father’s confidence that in
imitating his own love for us we would develop new talents for compassion and
care.
The committed and curious health care workers and scientists among
us are the saints who have practiced this compassion with all of their energy. They are doing Christ’s work. God alone knows how it will all play
out. But our efforts at compassion and
care can only enhance the plan that God has for us.
