Thursday, November 5, 2020
This year, not yet over, has presented us with a search for moral clarity. Caught between radically opposing views of the world, not just as it is but as it ought to be, we have struggled to create a moral compass for our lives. The pandemic has brought this struggle into sharp focus and not just in terms of who lives and who dies but in terms of who should be valued in our society.
Since the beginning of the health care emergency created by the pandemic, we have seen the best and worst of human behavior. Health care providers and their support staff caring for patients they know could infect them; industrialists worried more about their profits than the health of their workers.
Developing that moral compass should be our paramount goal at this time for if we are unable to do so, the wounds in our society will only continue to have band-aids rather than true solutions.
Prayer for the Day
Turn us aside from our ways of self-deception, O God,
Which have controlled how we live our lives;
Move us beyond our unwillingness to recognize
The deep truths of your all-embracing love.
Turn our hearts and deeds towards the world beyond
So we live life more fully as you intended.
We ask this in the name of him who brings us new life
Even Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The morality of a society is not judged by the behavior of an oppressed class but by the rules and laws made by the state which either protect or exploit an already depressed section of society.
Asma Jahanghir, Pakistani activist (1952–2018)
To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.
John Locke, Philosopher (1632–1704)
O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?
Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right,
and speak the truth from their heart;
Who do not slander with their tongue,
and do no evil to their friends,
nor take up a reproach against their neighbors.
Psalm 15:1–3