We head into another Memorial Day weekend, certainly different from the one last year but still not quite like two years ago. Mask mandates are being lifted for the weekend holiday and beyond – with warnings. Who’s to know who has been vaccinated? Who’s to know whether the maskless person you encounter is “safe?”
After a year of a lockdown and care, people are seemingly anxious to throw care away. Close to 4 million of our New Jersey residents have been fully vaccinated; that’s less than half of our state population and the percentages are about the same in other Eastern states. Erring on the side of caution may not be such a bad thing.
At our office we will still require clients to mask up, check temperatures and use sanitizer. It not only protects us but others in the community we serve. Don’t throw the masks away because you never know.
Prayer for the Day
God of all times and all places, help us to understand your will,
For sometimes we find ourselves in the desert of confusion,
Searching for water, we pray to leave the barren wastes
And to find the springs of understanding.
Refresh our lives with the water that can only come from you,
As we try to live as faithful witnesses of your word,
In the name of him who was your most faithful witness,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Kindness kindles kinship and kinship kindles a sense of community.
Abhijit Naskar, neuroscientist
Culture is like a forest. The seeds are your core values. Once they take root as behaviours, they can grow into trees, populating your cultural forest. Bad seeds produce unhealthy forests, infertile, and plagued by infestations. Good seeds produce a healthy forest and ecosystems that support life. One is sustainable, the other is simply not.
Diane Kalen-Sukra, Canadian political scientist
To you I life up my eyes, O God who is enthroned in the heavens!
As the eyes of servants look to their master, as the eyes of a maid to her mistress,
So our eyes look to the Lord our God until mercy is bestowed upon us.
Psalm123: 1-2