Shalom in the Face of COVID-19: Fighting the Battle One Mask at a Time

I wept.

I dried my tears.

I wept again.

The thing that brought me to my emotional knees was the article that follows this one. Written back in January, 2019, it demands an update. The second thing that brought me to my knees was the whirr of the sewing machine in the other room and the conversation I had with my Beloved.

Oftentimes, I would imagine, those women have to wonder if they are doing any good as they spend hour after hour after hour of sewing. I have followed them for several years now at our church, the Park Avenue Church of Christ in  Denison, Texas.

In the article that follows, I shape that conversation around shalom and how each thing we do is a small break in that which rages around us breaking shalom. For me, encouraging a Black farmer who is weary of the struggle in bringing shalom. Writing the voice over script for the documentary is bringing shalom. When Shoun edits the massive amount of hours of interviews into a seamless narrative of narratives, he is bringing shalom. When you do the good that you do wherever and whenever you do it, you are bringing shalom into the world. The world yearns for shalom.

Outside our windows and doors there is a war raging. Some of us call it a hoax. Some of us say that we are blowing it all out of proportion. Some say we are watching too much of CNN or MSNBC or whatever we prefer.

It hit me today that the war is close at hand. Small hospitals around North Texas do not have the capacity to treat those infected with the coronavius. They send their patients to larger towns with larger hospitals.  One of those hospitals is about two miles from here. They have infected patients on their floors. Doctors and nurses are fighting for their lives.  Yes, COVID-19 has arrived in my home town.

The women who sew are bringing shalom into dangerous situations. Doctors and nurses are asking for the masks that they are making.  Today we have three men come and look at our tankless water heater and give us estimates on repairing it.  "Would you wear a mask if you were to have one?" my Beloved asked.  They all said yes, so she gifted them with several for themselves and for members of their teams.

Doctors, nurses, assistants, intake personnel, insurance personnel, all of them are being exposed to the virus. Their patients are facing life or death and they are entering the trenches with them. Some, so I am told, request to work with these patients.  That is a "lay down your life for another" sort of a thing.

My Beloved and her friends can't be nurses, so they sew.  They can't be physicians, so they sew.  They can't be med techs, so they sew. They can't install water heaters, so they sew.

They sew hours upon hours day after day.  I can hear the machine whirring as we speak. Her hands, her long fingers, cutting, sewing, stitching in elastic, one by one by one by one.

If you want to know who you are, follow your feet.  That tells us who we are, our feet and where they go. That's what Frederick Buechner said in one of his books.

I watch my wife's feet and they go to the sewing machine.  That tells me who she is.  That tells me who her friends are.  They know that a war is going on with an "enemy" that is very, very small. We will win the war, and it will take all of us, doing the social distancing thing and the sheltering in place thing.

We will win the war and shalom will be restored one mask at a time, one medical person's face at a time, one worker at a time.

I weep for America, for my state, my county, my city, and I weep for the world. I weep for those who are losing family members and friends.

I weep thankfully for those women whose sewing machines are whirring as we speak.