The answer is both simple and extraordinary

Unless you’ve been living in a cave or under a rock for the last few weeks, you’re aware that we are in the midst of a flu virus pandemic. We’ve had these pandemics and epidemics throughout history, but for most of us, this pandemic has everyone on an extraordinary level of anxiousness. 

When the virus first struck, we were simply instructed to be more vigilant in basic hygiene and manners; to wash our hands more thoroughly and more often, to avoid touching our face, and to avoid coughing or sneezing on others.  Simple, right?  Now we’ve come to the point that there is basically a world-wide quarantine, one in which we are being instructed to limit our contact with others and to stay indoors until we can get a handle on things or the virus subsides.  Why?  I think it’s because there is such an unprecedented hate and suspicion of our neighbor these days that we don’t trust or believe anything they tell us, unless they’re on “our side”.  Relationships of any kind have become difficult, even familial ones.

Likewise, sometimes we make our lives and our relationship with God more difficult than it has to be.  This idea is illustrated perfectly in Jesus’ words in the Gospel, “No prophet is accepted in his own native place.” (Luke 4:24-30)   Sometimes we only hear what we want to hear, or we think what we need to do must be more complicated.  Take for example Naaman (2 Kings 5:1-15).  He goes to the prophet Elisha, looking for a cure for leprosy.  Elisha gives him a simple answer: Go and wash seven times in the River Jordan.  But Naaman doesn’t buy it. He’s angry. The answer must be more complicated. It was his servants who had the answer: “My father,” they said, “if the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary, would you not have done it? All the more now, since he said to you, ‘Wash and be clean,’ should you do as he said.”

Sometimes we seek a complicated solution, a bargain with God that will let us do what we want to do.  What we have to realize is that what God wants from us is both extraordinary and simple.  We have to learn to be quiet so we can really hear our own heart.  I pray that I can open my heart and listen, even if the answer seems simple.  Let me see what is extraordinary in the everyday, in the people around me.

It can be difficult for us to see God in one another, especially when “one another” means the people we see every single day.  We know that our friends, coworkers, and family members have flaws and they also know that we have our own.  That knowledge and the loving acceptance that can grow from it is beautiful in its own way, but it can also become challenging for us to see God in people that we think we know so well.

It’s a challenge to see each person anew from moment to moment, but I think it’s a worthwhile thing to focus upon.  One of the most beautiful aspects of being human is that each moment presents us with a new opportunity to make a good choice, to love as best we can.  To recognize that potential in oneself is challenging enough sometimes, and to understand that it extends to all people takes even more of a concerted effort on our behalf.  However, doing so will lead us towards seeing with a new light.

Let’s not limit each other by the myopically limited perspectives we have of each other.  Rather, let’s smile, open our arms, and remember that when we are rejecting, insulting, gossiping about, ignoring, and not listening to each other, we are doing so to Jesus, nailing Him to the cross once again.