Covid19 exaggerates. The grieving, grieve more deeply. Troubled couples are further troubled. People struggling with mental health issues need more support. Children with academic issues have increased stress. Addicts must  work harder at sobriety. Farmers, living on the brink of disaster, edge closer to bankruptcy. Disparities in health care rest unequally on the poor.

The year 2020 is giving us 20/20 sight. Revelations are painful. With clarity, we wonder how our nation could have been so far behind the curve in responding to the pandemic? We ask why such disparity in the way Covid19 hits communities? How is it possible we have no guaranteed health care?   The pandemic has uncovered our flaws and our weaknesses.  

This was the post I started and set aside several weeks  ago, since then 2020 has revealed even more about America.  It has shown the dark stain of racism and it’s underlying angst. Racial divisions and inequities have been laid bare . . . A discussion sparked by the injustice of George Floyd’s death.   Masses have demonstrated in cites large and small calling for justice.  Already, 2020 has uncovered much about us that we did not want to see.   

While this year has shown us dark places in our nation’s soul, it also is revealing another aspect. The part where people of all races and faiths have joined together demonstrating against injustice . . . protesting the demon of racism and the evil of police brutality. There have been outpourings of support for burnt out cities, with food drives to fill gaps in new food deserts and funding to rebuild cities.

And maybe, just maybe, 2020 will bring a renewed intention to change a culture, to revisit disparities and to answer questions not only about who we are, but who do we want to be? For if all people have value and worth . . .  if every  person is created in the image of God . . . how can we allow disparities and injustice  to continue?

Will 2020, be the year that changes our hearts and causes us to repent of our self-centeredness? Will we resist evil in its many forms? Will we allow Biblical values of justice and compassion to replace political values of self-righteousness and self-Centeredness?  Will we rise from our apathy and insist that this year, we begin to live out the vision of equality and justice for all?  Can this be the year when  “Justice rolls down like the waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Amos 5:24   The answer rests in our hearts and in actions.

Thus says the Lord: Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast, boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord. Jeremiah 9:23-24