I live in an Independent Living apartment in a retirement community. (Actually, I believe that it's not called Independent Living these days. The politically correct term now, is Residential Living.)
Weeks ago, when the Coronavirus conversation was becoming serious, I was listening to some radio talk and I heard that the most dangerous place to be is in a nursing home.
That makes sense.
Technically, we're in one.
There are three levels in most retirement communities. Ours, Independent, or Residential, personal care, formerly assisted living, and skilled care, which was once the nursing home.
It's dangerous to be in personal care and skilled care because those residents are in close proximity to each other, in a way that hospital patients are. In those settings, people in poor health, most with compromised immune systems, live close together, often with two residents sharing a room.
In times like these, that's dangerous.
As of yesterday, in the home my mom's in, 11 people, have tested positive for the Coronavirus, my mom, sadly, is one of them.
Here, where we live, to this date, no one has tested positive.
There are reasons for that. The administrators here have been ahead of the curve, aggressive, in creating quarantine conditions.
And, all the while, I'd been leaving the campus five days a week to work full-time in a GROCERY STORE.
Yesterday, I picked up the mail and read the latest guidelines for Residential Living and, clearly, my grocery store employment was far beyond those guidelines.
So, I called one of the people in authority in the effort to preserve the health of the members of the community and we talked about my job.
It was a good chat. He was in a difficult position.
He said that he can't order me to stop working. I imagine even the governor's Stay-at-Home order would allow me to work because I work in a life-sustaining business.
But, he made it clear that he wanted me to stop working.
He's a great guy, as is the entire staff here.
He slipped into the first person plural at one point and said, "We."
"We," he said, were concerned that my job wouldn't be open to me when this is over and, so, they hestitated to pressure me to stop working.
But, my job...or, at least, a job will be waiting for me. That's a comforting thought.
And,...
...as sensitive as he was about the impact of the home's rules on my life,...
...he was rather assertive, perhaps sensitively aggressive, in letting me know that they wanted me not to visit my mother in her home, especially now that she's tested positive for the Coronavirus.
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Anyway,...
...I agreed to stop working for the good of the community here at the home and, actually, more importantly for me, for Evie, who's recovering slowly from from her ailment and surgery and has other health problems, and more surgeries in her near future. More about that later, I'm sure.
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But, it feels like I'm stepping back from a calling, a ministry.
In my own mind, I've been setting myself apart from the high holders of institutional authority in the CGGC because I walk our talk and, in my opinion, they don't.
I practice the theory. Or I did. And, now, for the moment, at least, I don't.
And, it doesn't matter a lot that there is good reason.
I believe in the ambassador stuff that Lance pays lip service to,...
...that the first-ever CGGC Strategic Plan advocates.
Up until yesterday, I was among the very few, perhaps the only person, in the CGGC that walked the wonderful talk.
Now, I don't. And, that doesn't feel good.
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And, there's those for whom I served as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God.
I'm not there for them. I'm not incarnating the Kingdom among them.
I believe that I need to do what I've done.
But, it doesn't feel good in every way.
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