"Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to.” --Mitch Albion, author
If you want to see the true character of a person, a community, or a nation, just watch how they respond when times are tough.
That’s a truism I’ve come to believe in and witness in my thirty plus years as a helping professional. When you do work like I do—when you walk through the valley of this shadow of death with a family facing illness or accompany a couple through the wreckage of a divorce or stand by an addict as she seeks to escape the grip of her obsession, you often see humanity at its very best.
In hard times, you see people step up and sacrifice.
Like a single parent who sacrifices their own needs so their kids will thrive. Or a citizen soldier who, when the call goes out, leaves home, and loved ones to fight for the common good, to give even their life, so others might live. Or a teacher who gives up financial gain to work in a district where the pay is low, but the need is high. When sacrifice is called for, giving up something in the short term for a long term good; these ordinary people do extraordinary things.
But there is also the opposite corollary of this truism. I’ve also seen that sometimes when times are tough and demand the best of our humanity, the worst instead comes out. Our more selfish impulses. We can focus on trivial concerns that pale in comparison to what really matters. Or our instinct is to follow this moral path: every person for themselves!
Two weeks ago, when a federal judge struck down the Center for Disease Control’s mask mandate on public transportation, videos went viral showing passengers on airplanes cheering at the moment they found out they could take off their masks. As if some kind of communal challenge had been achieved or some war had been won or some difficult sacrifice was no longer needed when the judge acted. When the masks come off.
VICTORY! HIP HIP HOORAY!!
C’mon. Really?
Was it ever all that hard to wear a mask in public? While shopping at the grocery store or pharmacy? Or while watching a ball game or going to a movie? While riding a bus or taking a three-hour flight? I’m sorry but the notion of “celebrating” not having to do something anymore that was and is in fact so easy, so simple, so basic, and so clearly needed for the common good: it makes me sad.
Makes me think about the people in our nation who had to make real sacrifices during COVID, who had to do so much more than a person like me, to get through COVID. Some of whom are still sacrificing, still giving up, still suffering from so much more than having to don a mask and stay six feet away from a neighbor.
Real sacrifice.
Health care professionals that are still working so damn hard. Students and teachers who had to mask up for whole days at school. Young families who are still in lockdown because there is no way yet to vaccinate their child and keep the kid safe. Sacrifice? Loss? Think of all the families and the loved ones of the almost 1 million Americans who have died from COVID. All that grief. All that hurt.
And we complain about having to wear a mask or being required to be vaccinated to keep others safe. To just do our part for the common good. In March of 2020, I so wanted to believe and hope that the overwhelming majority of Americans would step up. Would give up whatever was needed. Would gladly contribute to the common good of uniting and fighting against COVID.
But that did not happen. We faced the worst, and, in some ways, it has shown what deficits we face as a community. It embarrasses me to say it, but we are civically flabby and out of shape as a nation. We’ve been led for more than a generation by a class of politicians who far too often appeal to the very worst in us and tell us we do not have to ever sacrifice anything for the common good. Social media, instead of uniting us, too often sows seeds of disinformation and tribalism.
My faith teaches me one basic lesson over and over and over and over. God makes us to be for and with one another. The life God gives to one and all is never ever meant to be a solo affair, to be lived for self alone. No. We are created to be in community and to do what we have to at times, and yes even sacrifice, for the common good we all need and the common good we all enjoy.
Sacrifice. The common good. We are all in this together America. God help us to remember that when the next crisis hits.
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