Remember when we were in kindergarten and the teacher said, “I don’t care what Johnny did, I care about what you’re doing so don’t go tattling on your neighbor”?  That principle was taught when we were young for a prophetic purpose, one that could have propelled us into boundary setting for the sake of  individual growth and personal responsibility.  If we adhered to such a virtue, accountability for self as well as respect for opposing opinion, spared us lots of heartache as we grew older.  However, there is a reason we learned that in school, and not at home.  Education used to be the reiteration of values expected to be taught on the home front, but over the years it has morphed into containment of emotional upsets that oppress the role of teachers, leaving the land unprotected from governmental regulation void of faith, and a system so quick to defend it’s position, that nobody is teachable anymore.   If we fought on the playground at recess, both parties had to sit out and rest to reflect on his own behavior.  Now we are so far removed from apology, our own parents, co-workers, magistrates, christians, law officers, celebrities, doctors and every stranger who bitches on social media defends their own beliefs at the cost of relationship.  Everyone is divided under the demands of fault finding and have lost sight of understanding that differences of opinion should be championed.  Even good writers know that you have to compel an argument from more than one vantage point, yet foundational respect has lost it’s audience because defending “one” view as the “right” view, is the mindset of the populace.  A sudden belief in activism has fueled the religious spirit which always needs to demand it’s own way by excommunicating anyone who thinks differently.

If I am interested in your side of the story that’s because we each have one, and that is the basis of remembering to keep our cool in the midst of chaos and crisis.   Now, some of us grew up in homes where the only thing that was consistent was inconsistency, so this pandemic is nothing more than a continuation of cray cray but we have to get back to basics.  Other people need hope now like our children and neighbors, all of us relying on each other to be extending grace, love and mercy.  It’s OK if you’re dealing with your own angst, but taking it out on others is going to make us a very angry nation and America still prides itself on being different from the rest of the world.  But right now, we have to lead by example and mind our own business while looking within when others do things we don’t like.

Tattling and calling the authorities on a neighbor for being ill only puts everyone at jeopardy because criminalizing someone for being stricken by this disease will invite laws to be mandated that may distance you from your own loved ones in the future.  Every act of haste has it’s consequences, and there is a much bigger picture here that we need to open our spiritual eyes too.  It is not any of your business what your neighbor does, nor is it the responsibility of our government.  Our first and fifth Amendment rights are already being negotiated because of hate filling the FB feeds against anyone who goes outside.  That anger toward the one who believes he is free to go outside, comes from scare tactics that satan suggests to further his plans, and that battle is personal.  Your business is to keep your blinders on and protect your heart from blaming another person for what you can’t control.  Do you fear the unknown so bad that you don’t rest long enough to introspect?  We cannot control people, places or things, but we can control how we respond to them. That was what life prophesied in kindergarten; those who took responsibility for themselves, not only set a standard for others to follow, they became immune to fearing what others thought about them.