As 2021 came to an end, I saw memes reflecting the toll this calendar year has taken on so many.
One, intending to show a beginning-and-end-of-year portrayal of a young woman, first showed a picture of a pretty, well-groomed twenty-something followed by a second picture of (supposedly) the same person, haggard and about 30 years older. Another was a photo which made its rounds last January accompanied by a reminder that less than a year had passed since it was taken. I remembered the photo, but admittedly was surprised that it had only been around for 11 months!
While 2021 was accompanied by more hope and normalcy than 2020, it certainly seemed to be longer than a “normal” year. We have lived through the seasons like usual; however, all jokes and memes aside, 2021 has brought more than its share of exceptions.
During this year, vaccines were rolled out, causing division in our society and even in our families. Unmarked graves were discovered, resulting in difficult and necessary discussions about our country’s past, present, and future. A “heat dome” resulted in several hundred deaths, extreme pressure on already-overworked emergency service providers, and damage to plants and ecosystems. Fires forced evacuations and even razed communities. Floods destroyed farms, roads, homes, and lifestyles. Food and gasoline rations were imposed. Finally, yet another variant of our all-too-familiar virus resulted in rounding out the year with illness, along with the anxiety of defeat and the second-guessing of decisions.
In my personal circle, 2021 also included the challenges of death and illness. Several close friends lost parents; people close to my age died, suddenly, of heart attacks, or slowly and painfully, of cancer and other illnesses; babies were born and babies died; diagnoses were received. We have lived – and aged, it seems – several years in one.
It is sad to think that so many people have endured their final days or faced unfathomable challenges with so many additional cautions, restrictions, and the ever-looming awareness that our world has changed. Even more troublesome, perhaps, is the division caused by openly voiced opinions and actions ensuing from panic.
Everyone is entitled to their own feelings, yet many tend to criticize those who do not see things their way. The isolation of the pandemic goes far beyond the need to stay home more than usual; it has resulted in some troubling forms of self-centredness in everything from failing to see another’s point of view to the hoarding of eggs and paper towels.
Yes, there is a virus going around. It threatens lives and it has changed our perspectives, but we are called to use these challenging times for good. In Mark 7:15, Jesus states, “Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” Jesus explains that a failure to precisely follow rituals through outward actions is not nearly as damaging as the evil thoughts within a person that could result in acts of immorality and selfishness.
I recall the beginning of the pandemic, when we thought that, as a world, we were all in this together. More than a year later, people have grown apart. It is true that a virus can make us sick, that extreme weather conditions are beyond our immediate control, that food shortages are terrifying, and that horrific discoveries from the past can displace our knowledge of history and uproot our sense of comfort.
These circumstances most surely can affect us and influence our behaviours; however, outside happenings, in and of themselves, do not defile. As Jesus reminds us, what is within – what we think and what motivates our actions – can defile more than what is outside of us. Regardless of how negative and awful events are, we cannot blame outward influences for our personal actions.
Several people have been quoted with variations of the notion that we cannot control what happens around and to us, but we can control how we choose to respond. Let us begin 2022 with a resolve to choose positive rather than negative responses. Let us live with a genuine sense of “other.”
These difficult months may feel like years, but this is our time in history. Since now is the only chance we’ve got, may we offer our best selves. Happy 2022!
