Two Wake-up Calls in 5 years!

When I think of the difficult things in our lives and in the world today, especially in our country, I think that they are wake-up calls from God to “see and hear” as Jesus says often[1], to know what is really happening and what is really needed for us to do in light of, say, a mysterious disease that is harming people all over the world, like Covid. The arrival of Covid across the world was what made me think of the wake-up calls in our lives, both for us alone and for the whole world. Covid, like typhoid fever of the early 1900s or other pandemics across history, calls us to work together across our neighborhoods, our countries, and our world to heal the disease. Of course, in this age of instant communication across the world, it is a whole lot easier to combat an illness like Covid that at any time in the past.

Here’s how the Covid epidemic was eventually healed by the medicines developed in many scientific labs across the world:

“Perhaps the most inspiring chapter of the COVID-19 story is the global scientific effort to develop a vaccine. Leveraging decades of research on viruses and novel vaccine platforms, scientists raced to create, test, and distribute vaccines at record speed. Within a year of the pandemic’s start, multiple vaccines had completed clinical trials and received emergency use authorization.

“Two of the earliest and most successful vaccines—Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna—used messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. These vaccines introduced a piece of genetic code that instructed human cells to produce the spike protein, teaching the immune system to recognize and attack the virus. Other vaccines, such as those from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Sputnik V, used viral vectors to deliver the spike gene”[2]

Telemedicine and consultations across at least the wealthier nations changed the outcome. Of course, the richer nations were more successful than the poorer ones in treating those affected, but hopefully we’ve learned to share what we know when everyone in the world is affected. That was the big wake-up call in the Covid era!

This was the first time in my lifetime that I remember the whole world being engaged. This was a sure sign of community at work in our world! Just as God designed it to be.

And now we’re in the midst of undeniable evidence that Global Warming is a real threat to our planet, even when many people in power are denying its effects in so many more and harsher fires, tornados, hurricanes, rising seas and warmer temperatures, beyond what is comfortable for humans, animals, and plants to live in. A Second Wake-up call is growing in intensity even as Covid had all our attention, but officials in our country are denying its very obvious effects on people across the world.

Now this threat is challenging the whole world, with the younger and poorer people having to face a disaster that seems endless. We Americans are not joining together with other nations to change the circumstances that have led to Global Warming, like the use of coal and gas and gasoline as the major power sources and plastics in packaging food and other products, while the gas and oil produced is poisoning our planet. That plastic is really harming our oceans now. Up until recently, it did seem like the world, or at least our country, was paying more attention to the use of solar and wind power which do not create poisonous stuff in our environment at all. But, at least here in the U.S., the gas and oil companies are fighting any effort to reduce their usage on a large scale. They want to maintain their sources of revenue and not let anything change it, even as the cost of using them is harming so many people across the world.

If we are to live in the community that God created for us on the planet Earth, then we must find new ways of producing non-polluting substances to create engine power for cars, electrical power for our homes, and whatever other power needs we have or develop. If we care about the younger populations in our midst and in the whole world, then we have to change our use of poisonous products that are overproducing the heat in our midst now or this planet will be very difficult to live on in the pretty near future.

Do we care about our fellow citizens of this planet, the world that everyone will have live in, and the future of every citizen of this planet? Do we even care about our country’s future in light of this threat? That is what this wake-up call asks of us. We and our descendants must be, of course, included in the equation of how we respond to this crisis. What kind of world do we want for our children and grandchildren and future generations, as well as those across the globe. We must remember that we are children of God, made in His image, so that we can care about everyone who lives on this planet. After all, God created this worldwide community and we can truly help make it a livable one, if we care about God and His people, including all of our own!

[1] Mark 4:9-20, Mark 8:18, Mtthew 11:15, for example

[2] https://www.sciencenewstoday.org/what-is-covid-19-the-story-of-a-virus-that-changed-the-world