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Last night I happened to see a European TV report on the divide in America about wearing masks. It has become a political issue, so political, in fact that the Republican Governor of North Dakota had to make an emotional plea to the state’s residents to move beyond seeing wearing masks as a new front in the culture wars.

Wearing a mask in public isn’t about limiting our freedoms like the Virginia woman in the news report. “It’s my right to get sick if I want.” It’s about protecting others including the clerk at the supermarket, the person pumping gas, and the people in line who just want to buy their groceries.

This weekend we are called to remember those who gave their lives so we have our freedom, including the right to protest rules we don’t like. As we remember those men and women, let us also remember the thousands of health care workers without the protective equipment they need to protect the rest of us, including the woman who may end up in the hospital because she refused to wear a mask.

––Pastor Joyce