Living with people who believe in Divine Immunity during COVID-19, May 2021

It's May 8th, 2021, and I just finished my early morning ride around Peoria, which is a suburb of Phoenix. Since I like to ride first thing in the morning I go north by northwest, keeping the blinding sun behind me, and turn back around southeast to go home when the sun is a little higher. This is Arizona, you know, where the skies are not cloudy all day! And this route often takes me into an area that I like to describe as the "Divine Immunity" zone. And it's been puzzling me for a long time now, and I think that I'm just beginning to understand.

I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota and went to the Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church. And even as a kid I considered it a dull and dreary place to be. We would stand up every once in a while during church service and sing in the blandest way possible, then we'd sit down, and at some point the service would be over, and it would be time to start thinking about dinner, which we always had at 1 pm on Sundays. Other than that, I don't recall that it had much of an impact on anyone's lives. Most of the people I knew were in similar religions, like Methodists and Lutherans, and while there were some Catholic people around, I knew nothing about them other than the girls were supposedly boy-crazy.

It really wasn't until I moved to Los Angeles that I started learning more about different faiths. And as someone who has always been interested in history, I became fascinated by how faith in some kind of divinity (such as a god, or whatever) could be wonderful, or horrible. I saw people whose faith brought them through the darkest days of their lives, and I saw people who abused power because of the ability to manipulate people with faith. And that brings me to today, as the world tries to dig itself out a terrible pandemic.

I'm fully vaccinated myself (to quote Dolly Parton: "I'm old enough and I'm smart enough"). I also wear seat belts in cars, avoid drinking milk that's expired, take my cholesterol meds, wear a bicycle helmet, use sunblock, floss, and wear a mask when I go into a building. This may be seen by some people as my showing a weak faith, and I have no intention of annoying them. I really do believe in "live and let live" and I realize that they can become triggered by just seeing me. So I try to stay away from them.

If that group includes you, I deeply apologize for going into your zone this morning. I just needed to stop and the park for a rest stop. Go in peace.
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