Pastor’s Corner: Believing

September 9, 2020

I’ve met a number of people who don’t believe in God over the years. Some have been strangers, some have been acquaintances, and some have been very dear to me indeed. So I’ve often heard the sentence, “Well, you know, I don’t believe in God.” I have been been known, from time to time, to respond with the time-honored reply, “That’s OK. God believes in you.”

I really only say that when I’m pretty sure it will be taken well.

COVID-19 has persuasively demonstrated the power of belief. Quite a number of people around the world have chosen not to believe in the transmissibility and the severity of the coronavirus. Some have said so and done so actively, while others have discounted or disregarded the precautions that take up the front page of this issue of The Messenger. “It’s OK; I don’t need to do that. The virus isn’t here.” Some of them have taken ill. Some have died.

Because it’s real. It’s here. It’s easily transmissible. And it’s severe.

Believe it.

I, along with you, am decidedly weary of the precautions. I don’t mind the masks, even if talking does pull the top off the bridge of my nose. I do mind the physical separation that I struggle to actually keep. I am weary of the lack of physical contact week in and week out. I miss the loss of our shared breath.

More than those, however, I ache for the rapid growth of suffering people. I believe in reducing suffering. I believe in promoting good health. I believe in nourishing community compassion as a healing elixir for the spirit.

Therefore I believe in this illness in order that I may prevent its spread to those around me – just as I believe in the blessings of God, so that I may promote the spread of goodness to people near and far.

With aloha,

Pastor Eric