The Church Vs. The State Civil Disobedience

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GeoFee said:
Tragic to notice what is happening on the spiritual side.
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Like what?

I have a friend, just turned 91, who about 18 months ago, decided it was time to sell her house and move into a retirement residence.

She moved in the beginning of December 2019. Poor timing, one might say, not Joan. Before all this happened, she had the facilities to have mega combo birthday party (90 and 60) for herself and her late daughter. She got more friends and relatives in that monster party room than she'd ever have squashed in her little bungalow.

Since then, her activities have been somewhat restricted at times, but she doesn't moan or whine. She's become the Zoom queen! She has exercise classes three times a week, she attends a Qi Gong class that way, she comes to my Tuesday Night group, she has a weekly Zoom call with her far-flung family, of which she is the matriarch, she views the Sunday service via livestream.

She has been truly "locked down", i.e. in her small room with three meals a day delivered to her, for a few periods in the last year. They keep it in place for the absolute mimimum amount of required time.

Challenging your assumption that preserving the physical body is always traumatic to the spiritual body.

Another couple of friends, tragically separated by circumstances. Both 82, she is healthy, he has Parkinson's. They have "seen" each other in person only maybe twice since this began, as he is in a nursing home, not a retirement home, that has had repeated infections. What do they do? Do their daily crossword every morning, as they have done for decades, just over Zoom. I've been over for a masked distanced visit, and she's got her "Barry corner" all set up, with the newspaper, the dictionary and thesaurus, the tablet.
 
BetteTheRed said:
Challenging your assumption that preserving the physical body is always traumatic to the spiritual body.
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I am not suggesting that physical care is always traumatic to spiritual being. I will suggest that many in care homes suffer from spiritual disconnection. Working with the elderly disabled for many years has made it obvious to me that as human beings we are made for connection.
 
GeoFee said:
I am not suggesting that physical care is always traumatic to spiritual being. I will suggest that many in care homes suffer from spiritual disconnection. Working with the elderly disabled for many years has made it obvious to me that as human beings we are made for connection.
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The physical and the metaphysical do seem to have contrary sides ...
 
GeoFee said:
I will suggest that many in care homes suffer from spiritual disconnection.
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I think this is a social cultural problem around the value of the elderly. It simply isn't the same problem in more Eastern countries where age is venerated.
 
Ritafee said:
Good for her ... she would be indicative of what percentage of folks that are in total lockdown?
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In my experience, most of the elderly are not in "total lockdown", or at least haven't been so, consistently. Responsible homes "lockdown" when they have infection/contagion they can't manage without restricting access. Again, there's differences between retirement homes and LTC, differences between for-profit and not-for-profit facilities, differences between provinces, differences between health units within provinces. I know a LOT of elderly people (hanging out in a church will do that). I don't deny that this pandemic has had effects beyond that of the disease, but that's a "feature" of a pandemic.

Most people are trying the best with what they've got. And like all moral dilemmas, maybe it is at the cost of one person's mental health deteriorating that ten live successfully through the pandemic.
 
Is one hour of worship-tainment all that the church is essentially called into service for?

Relegating the church to 'Zoom' theatrics ... at your disposal 24/7 ... always on hand when there is nothing better on the WWW.

How does one love our neighbors when we are allowing ourselves to think of our neighbors as a 'disease' to be afraid of.
 
BetteTheRed said:
And like all moral dilemmas, maybe it is at the cost of one person's mental health deteriorating that ten live successfully through the pandemic.
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Live successfully? As in healthy people being restricted from quality of life to allegedly protect the vulnerable ... who died anyway ... with the added burden of being denied access to their families and friends ... and the ones that did not die ... traded off quality of life for a bit of extra quantity in 'lockdown'.
 
Ritafee said:
Is one hour of worship-tainment all that the church is essentially called into service for?
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And where did you get that from anything/everything I've said about what's going on with our congregation? In addition to the weekly live-streamed service, there are groups of people meeting, virtually, to plan the worship services, often to record readings, or special music pieces to be inserted into the service. All of the teams who met regularly pre-COVID still meet. The exercise classes go on, with an additional class added. Those who are shut in, or in homes, are visited in person, as it's possible (our Pastoral team leader lives down the street from me, and hosted distanced tea parties in her backyard all summer.) People call other people. There's a couple who make and deliver meals for 2 or 3 dozen people (mainly people who live on their own, or who are caregivers) pretty well once a week. Even our interaction with the outside community continues in some fashion. Our anon groups have moved on-line, but it means they needn't pay us "rent", and we post signs all over all the doors directing their members to this alt way of working, we're working on getting much smaller numbers of our disabled client groups back into our space. We hosted our "Fabulous Food Fair" virtually last fall, and it worked pretty well. The Rev and I have just been talking (she dropped off a script for a Palm Sunday skit in which I'm Martha, and some flowers, and we had a distanced/masked mini-visit on my front porch) about how we will mount a "virtual" Seder on Maundy Thursday. She was out and about delivering benevolent gift cards to some community (not necessarily congregation) members in need.
 
Ritafee said:
Live successfully
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Yes, versus die. Life can return to a 'normal' level of socializing (which isn't much for a lot of old people, anyway, and it's got NOTHING to do with a pandemic, simply the poor value Western culture places on the elderly), for those people who lived, who would otherwise have died.

To some extent, it's a numbers game.

If two countries with 30 million people enter the same pandemic, one country has 10,000 deaths, the second has 100,000 deaths, the first country might be said to have "won" the pandemic.
 
VANCOUVER: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is pleased with the decision of Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson of the Supreme Court of British Columbia to strike down Public Health Orders banning outdoor protests but is disappointed in the Court’s dismissal of the challenge to the BC Government’s prohibition on in-person religious gatherings.

Regarding the Applicant churches, Chief Justice Hinkson found that Dr. Henry’s Orders infringe the fundamental freedoms of religion, speech, assembly and association, but ruled that the infringements are justified. The Chief Justice found that Dr. Henry was owed deference to her decision-making and was not required to be correct in making her orders but only needed to have acted in a reasonable range of alternatives.
 
Perhaps the Church buildings should all be recommissioned then ... into essential services buildings ... a chain of sports bars and 'lockdown' hotels?
 
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Ritafee said:
VANCOUVER: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is pleased with the decision of Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson of the Supreme Court of British Columbia to strike down Public Health Orders banning outdoor protests but is disappointed in the Court’s dismissal of the challenge to the BC Government’s prohibition on in-person religious gatherings.

Regarding the Applicant churches, Chief Justice Hinkson found that Dr. Henry’s Orders infringe the fundamental freedoms of religion, speech, assembly and association, but ruled that the infringements are justified. The Chief Justice found that Dr. Henry was owed deference to her decision-making and was not required to be correct in making her orders but only needed to have acted in a reasonable range of alternatives.
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Is any of this your writing? What are your thoughts. Are you capable of commenting and forming thoughts to respond to what others have written?
 
BetteTheRed said:
In my experience, most of the elderly are not in "total lockdown", or at least haven't been so, consistently. Responsible homes "lockdown" when they have infection/contagion they can't manage without restricting access. Again, there's differences between retirement homes and LTC, differences between for-profit and not-for-profit facilities, differences between provinces, differences between health units within provinces. I know a LOT of elderly people (hanging out in a church will do that). I don't deny that this pandemic has had effects beyond that of the disease, but that's a "feature" of a pandemic.

Most people are trying the best with what they've got. And like all moral dilemmas, maybe it is at the cost of one person's mental health deteriorating that ten live successfully through the pandemic.
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Are you suggesting that physical well being trumps spiritual well being?
 
Dr. Bonnie Henry has stated: “Do not attend a service at a church, synagogue, mosque, gurdwara, temple, or other places of worship”.

But the Court of BC has allowed for outdoor protests ... I am guessing that there will be more and more outdoor 'protest' church services being held in BC going forward.

Meanwhile in Quebec, which has been impacted 10 times the amount of BC ... their churches are opening with greater capacity.

Mysterious ways.
 
GeoFee said:
Are you suggesting that physical well being trumps spiritual well being?
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Don't you need a good physical wellbeing in order to have a good spiritual wellbeing? I'm thinking Maslow. It's hard for us to be spiritual if we don't have physical safety and wellness.

I truly hope that the atrocities in care homes that were revealed by this pandemic get fixed. We need to treat our elders much better. My father thankfully lives in an apartment. He's quite capable of that. Giving someone like him a few supports in his home would be far less expensive than a care home and would help him maintain his dignity.
 
Northwind said:
Don't you need a good physical wellbeing in order to have a good spiritual wellbeing?
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I would say that physical well-being does not produce spiritual well-being. I am thinking of persons in all ages who suffered physically and overcame that suffering by drawing on spiritual resources. I am also thinking of millions who conform to the agenda of power and in this way lose their true human being. The prime example would be the consumer culture in which we are immersed.
Northwind said:
I truly hope that the atrocities in care homes that were revealed by this pandemic get fixed.
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Whole hearted agreement on this. Read “Making Grey Gold” by Timothy Diamond several years ago. He suggests that care homes for the elderly do not serve our elders well. My working experience with the disabled affirms this perspective. Ancient peoples venerated their elders. Our current social structures exploit our elders in service to profit. Not without exceptions, but as the prevailing agenda.
 
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