Masks or no masks - A mom's presentation

 

This link will get you the entire presentation, 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0tvk2u5wyi1zr51/mask%20presentation%20updated.docx?dl=0

but here are a couple of ideas that I've not heard anywhere else...

As I have tried to lay out, one reason could be that the theory behind the call for universal mask-wearing has been disproven time and time again. But, one could still say, maybe they do help even a tiny bit ---surely we must wear them if they help even in the slightest. But the other side of that argument works as well ---what if they do even a tiny bit of harm? There is more actual evidence compiled over the past decades that support the latter, not the former.

 

If the weaker brother is the person who feels very anxious about possibly contracting the virus, then I do have compassion for those who struggle with inordinate fears. I have known debilitating, prolonged fear. I know what it is to experience dark, intrusive thoughts that persist despite all attempts at using logic and rational thinking. I also know that it would not have been loving or beneficial for me if everyone around me had indulged my fears; "played along" with them, as it were. At some point, irrational thinking turns into delusional living. A person made in the image of God is not meant to live in a state of irrational thinking.

 

Furthermore, who determines who qualifies as the weaker brother in this context? One person struggles with fear and anxiety when surrounded by people who are not covering their faces. The other person struggles with fear and anxiety when surrounded by people who are covering their faces. Maybe for everyone in this room, wearing a mask and worshipping in a room with masked people is not a problem. I would implore you, though, to consider the fact that you might not know the extent of the mental, emotional, and psychological struggles that some in your congregation might be experiencing when exposed to a room full of masked church members.

 

For those who have experienced abuse, particularly sexual abuse, there is a real tendency to be so overcome with a sense of shame that it becomes, to use an appropriate metaphor, the very air that they breathe. (I submit this not simply as a theoretical statement, but as a personal one, as I have experienced a type of sexual abuse in my past.) There is a desperate desire to hide one's face, to not be seen, because the thought of being seen and being known is far too painful. That negative desire extends outward and makes the person also more prone to avoid seeing others, to avoid looking into others' faces. This is a result of the Fall. And yet there is also the desperate desire to lift one's face, to look into the face of another without fear, without shame, and to be fully seen and fully known. This is the result of the Imago Dei.

 This ambivalence can also be true for people who have experienced other forms of abuse, including spiritual abuse in the context of a church. But I would argue that all of us, including non-believers, are subject to this broken reality. We experience shame, and so we cover our faces and we avoid the faces of others. And yet we long to be seen. Masking our faces perpetuates a sense of insecurity, as it is not clear what consists of acceptable human interaction anymore, even on Sunday mornings. This confusion and awkwardness has its roots in shame and can contribute to anxiety and depression. The argument that "it doesn't do any harm, it's not a big deal, it's an easy thing to do," is not only false from an actual scientific point of view, but it is harmful on a spiritual level. In my opinion, it shows a lack of imagination and compassion, for it reduces the person, including children, down to a biological entity, a potential spreader of viruses, while ignoring the complex Biblical reality that tells us that we are more than just our corporal forms; that health and wellness and Shalom aren't confined to just the physical realm.