Good morning church and happy Saturday.
Can you believe that we are already in the month of May? That’s crazy. What has happened to our time? It’s almost like we have been in hibernation or something. Oh wait, we kinda have been. Looks like that is about to change. Almost as quickly as things were shut down, there is a rush to reopen as much as possible. Having been watching this process, reading many articles written by people with numerous abbreviations behind their names, listening in on county, state and departmental meetings, things are moving forward rapidly. When the pandemic first hit, the majority of the people were freaked out. It made sense to do whatever it took to contain the rapid spread of the virus. Then, as time went on, you could feel the tension between the health crisis and the economic crisis growing. In some ways, it was a catch-22. The longer the severe restrictions remained in place, the sicker the US economy became. A few reports emerged that actually calculated the cost-benefit of opening things sooner in terms of placing a dollar value on a human life versus economic gain. Questions have been asked like, “How many people is it ok to let die if the majority of the people benefit?” , “How many people will die of other things (depression, suicide, starvation, accidental overdose, heart attacks, etc.) if the economy doesn’t reopen?” , “How many will die if we just let the virus run its course and we strive for herd immunity?” Fortunately, the majority of us don’t have to evaluate questions like that and then create policy based on the answers. In light of questions like that, I personally don’t think it is such a big deal to be asked to wear a mask in public, practice social or physical distancing, and wash my hands more often. If it helps people from getting sick or even dying, then it’s a very small price to pay.
Now it comes time for the big experiment or the calculated risk, whichever you want to call it. Throughout this week, there has been a flurry of activity at the state and local level. The culmination of meetings, task forces, research, along with some guesswork, optimism and a bit of “everyone else is doing it” has led to our time to reopen Kansas. In a way, it was a bit humorous to watch the Johnson County task force react to Governor Kelly’s state plan. They had spent countless hours debating and formulating a plan over the last few weeks. It had been released to the public. People were assessing their multi-phase approach and were starting to build their own plans around it. It appears that there were surprised when the Governor’s plan was less restrictive than their own. It even proposed the phases to potentially move along quicker if there wasn’t a spike in cases. Therefore, the Jo Co task force met on Friday and voted to table their own plan and adopt the statewide plan.
But then all heck broke loose. Not only did they want to adopt the less stringent plan, a few then wanted to move up the start date to match the State plan. They didn’t want to wait until the 11th as per the chief medical officer’s order. One of the commissioners even threatened to take it to court to challenge the interpretation of the statute giving the medical officer’s authority. As I listened to their meeting, it was sad to hear the bickering, yelling and disrespect that took place. It’s good to be passionate about your position but it’s not ok to be the King James version of a donkey about it. I don’t know why I thought it would be any different, but the meeting sounded just like others that I have seen in my life. Strongly opinionated people trying to persuade others to take their side. People getting their feelings hurt. Division and strife. What it left me wondering is how much of the policy at the state and federal level has been determined in this same manner? That’s a bit frightening if you think about it.
For our church, we will be processing the latest information about the opening of Johnson County and will be discussing it this week. Fortunately, our meetings have been very good up to this point. In fact, they have been quite enjoyable and something to look forward. I am thankful for a group of people that love the Lord and each other. As soon as we can, we will update you on when our first Sunday morning service will be and what precautions will be in place to try to keep people healthy.
Until then, continue watching on-line and keep in touch with each other.
You are loved,
Larry
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