The Social Porcupine

This post isn't really about wearing my first mask. It's about why masks are so irrelevant.  * * * I began exchanging letters about two years ago with a young woman in jail. She is my age: twenty-four. All this time she has been awaiting trial for murder. Due to COVID, she hasn't been allowed to see her family (including her young son) in nearly a year. Even before that, though, she wasn't allowed to touch or hug them. Her mother contacted me last month. "Her sentencing is beginning of April." I'd heard Biden had mandated masks in federal buildings, no exceptions. "I don't think I'll be able to come."  What am I basing right and wrong on? I wondered. On whether or not a mask was to be required?  I laughed at myself. Here I was submitting to all sorts of other outrageous violations: TSA and paying car insurance, among many others. And yet I couldn't wear a mask to be there for a friend who really needed support and comfort?  Scripture ...

I once worked in customer service. You know, the job where you paste a smile on your face when all you want to do is let that other person have what ought to be coming to them. But of course, you keep the smile, keep the words, and keep on serving. For the small, silly reason that you want to keep your job (though, those of us that have quit, know that we’d never take such a job back. Even when our bosses have told us over and over, “Oh, but you were made for customer service!”).  Hah. Made for it.  But how the world has changed.  Now, or so I heard, rude customer service is encouraged. Of course, only for the correct political reasons. Maybe I would have stayed in the business, had it been so in my day . . .  But then maybe not. Back then I definitely had my moments of wishing to spit in people’s faces. But now . . . with that warning constantly being bombarded into my eardrums, I’m sure I’d not be able to curb the temptation.  Back then I’d merely have been fi...

  I haven't worn a mask since  . . . when did COVID start?  * * *  I didn't really mean to not wear one, to be honest. This summer I was applying for a job at TacoBell and thought I might have to go ahead and wear the thing. Life had other plans, I suppose. And then came pride. I remember being weirded out when I first saw people wearing them. I was shocked, humored, slightly scared.  The day before Trump announced he'd be banning international travel, I was laughing with my au pair family about whether or not this virus thing was worth worrying about.  "I don't think so many people could be that stupid," I'd said. "Just in case," my au pair mother said. "I'll buy some groceries." She asked me to come along and bought me a dirndl. I told her I thought I might like somebody. If I married him would she come to my wedding? She laughed. I'd been living with her for four months and hadn't mentioned the guy once. And we had bigger...

Trump is wearing a mask, at last, say leftists. Even went as far as to tweet a picture of himself in a mask and say that wearing masks is patriotic and that he's the biggest patriot ever.  I'm not kidding if you haven't seen this. It's real. At first, I laughed.  And then I was like, "You know? He's actually kinda right." Maybe it is patriotic to wear a mask.  Because, what does patriotism even mean? A loyalty or allegiance to one's country and fellowman.  Which means:  Nazi's were patriots.  Communists were patriots.  Democrats, republicans, libertarians; all of these are patriots.  When the church was early and young, they thought it was wrong to give their allegiance to anyone but God. They were loyal and loving and kind to their fellow man, always ready to be as the Good Samaritan. But they did not worship a flag or set of nationalist ideals. God alone held their complete loyalty.  Early Christians weren't patriots.  And so, yes mayb...