Whether one believes, or not, we can find a lot of meaning in what Thomas Jefferson used for his bible: only what Jesus was supposed to have spoken. So when it comes to COVID, Easter and Jesus I find my meaning for the season there. Not so much on pageantry. Not so much on every painful detail of what so many: not just Jesus, went through. Some far worse than he did. Jesus was killed early during the Empire’s horrific form of execution. Usually the crucified were there for many days, slowly bleeding and suffocating to death. Because resurrection is not a story only told in the Bible, part of the mythologies of other ancient faiths, even that should take somewhat of a backseat to much of what he taught, what he said.
 Especially Easter time, 2020.

 ”Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least…”

 COVID doesn’t respect class.
 COVID doesn’t care about political or theological correctness.
 COVID doesn’t care about the economy, or who gets elected or walls.
 A wall may stop a sneeze or a cough but it won’t stop those who have a perfect right to cross the border, or those who are already here, or if COVID crosses the border through some back way as it passes from person to person. COVID can pass from those trying to get across the border to those who stop them. COVID could go from Mexico to somewhere else, then somewhere else, then here, or come in on something that has been touched. It lives on surfaces for quite a while.
 In America we have the homeless, those who can’t pay their bills, prisoners, the very poor, slums, the elderly, children and illegals: many whom are often labeled “the lesser” among us. Let’s include those who were infected because there are those who think it ‘funny’ to go through shopping centers sneezing and coughing on the healthy. COVID doesn’t care if you are MAGA, called a Bernie Bro, a Hillary Bot, anti-corporatocracy, pro-business. Russian interference means nothing to COVID. Socialism doesn’t frighten it, nor National Socialism.
 Easter time, this year, is a time to pay attention to lessons it is said Jesus taught: something we should seriously think of having a celebration for because these lessons are far more important than crosses, a manger, trees in houses, rolled stones, crowns of thorns or cup he drank from. Far more important than if the grape juice or wine actually turns into blood, the bread or the wafer into his body. If we do something “in memory of me” the ritual performed precisely is far less important than remembering.
 And this brings me back to the “least.” When we think about the least among us, think of those with poor to no health care. Think of the huddled masses yearning to be free and those yearning to stop them. Think of the millions who have gone untested and the lack of testing because the untested could pass it on to you, your loved ones because we don’t know. Playing politics with COVID only assures it will continue to explode across the country, despite artificial partisan divides. Any cure, and vaccine, should belong to ALL of humanity, not just bought so it’s owned, proprietary, to one nation.
 COVID is proof positive of an altered version of something the bible mentioned that Jesus said: what is allowed to happen to the least among us is what we do unto ourselves.

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 Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 40 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses, that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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