Jesus said to his disciples, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in them, will bear much fruit.”
Bearing fruit is a metaphor indicative of health; physical, psychological, spiritual. Producing sickness is indicative of the exact opposite. A terrible sickness, abnormal in that it is a pandemic, has plagued the world for over a year. People whose immune systems are less healthy than normal have had their health most adversely affected by Covid-19. Relevant factors are congenital such as lung problems and heart conditions and pre-existing such as COPD and hypertension. But also relevant to a healthy immune system are personal and social factors such as childhood adversity and chronic stress spawned from confined living space, diets lacking fresh vegetables, environments lacking clean water, neighborhoods lacking medical facilities, regions lacking gainful work. These factors are not normal and yet are normal in the U.S. Thus, not only is it now normal for a virus to cause people to be sick across the U.S. culture, but it has long been normal for the U.S. culture itself to cause people to be sick. A sick U.S. culture judges the coronavirus a hoax because it judges many of the aforementioned factors as psychological rather than physical, and as only personal not social. However, there is a natural interrelationship between psychological suffering / trauma and physical illness; personal and social. But U.S. culture habitually assigns blame to the dried-up fruit only. For example, people are sick or ‘dried up fruit’ because they don’t eat right or don’t exercise or have a weak character. U.S. culture hinders consideration of it – the vine and branches – being sick and thus producing dried-up fruit, sick people. The sickness of the U.S. culture was recently admitted to by the former president’s Covid response coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx. After making cuts to Affordable Care, disbanding the Covid response team, impeding PPE, lying, censoring medical data, and using race and politics maliciously, Birx confessed, “100,000 deaths came from that original surge. All of the rest of them… could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.” In truth, so much sickness could be mitigated or decreased substantially. For example, when U.S. capitalists convene in Congress to maintain a minimum wage, corporate Ag, and deregulation they are not healing the dried-up fruit / the sickness of poverty, toxic food, and pollution / guns. They are being the withered vine and dying branches perpetually causing each. So too when world capitalists convene in Davos, as they did recently, to implement “The Great Reset,” they too are being the withered vine and dying branches perpetually causing these same sicknesses. It is not a conspiracy theory to identify the U.S.’ for-plunder disease system as sick. Neither is it a conspiracy theory to identify Davos’ for-plunder everything system as sick. Davos founder Klaus Schwab, capitalist friends Bill Gates, George Soros, and 100+ millionaires and 50+ heads of state are not hiding their intent. It is not to inject us with a tracking microchip (think Elon Musk) or to devise a socialist takeover. It is, as these capitalists admit, to “determine the future state of global relations, the direction of national economies, the priorities of societies, the nature of business models and the management of a global commons.” Capitalist masters, however well-intentioned, have been determining all that for centuries, and sickness is the resulting norm; personal and social.
Creating a ‘new normal’ with healthy vines and branches bearing fruit means knowing our entire personal health / immune system is in relationship with our entire social health / immune system. We live in communion, as an interrelated whole, an immune web. We can create whole environments of health for our ‘new normal.’ Proposals include environments based on the meaningfulness of humanity and the use of technology – not the other way around; a respectful rather than capitalist interaction between wild-life and human habitats; the universal right to healthy resources – air, soil, water, and emergency services; the universal right to health care; the inclusion of mental health in provisions for social health: the inclusion of persons disabled, older, and/or vulnerable in social health designs; activist health care professionals; health curriculum in schools; rural towns and city neighborhoods having medical clinics, community centers, and family areas; civic planning for exercise, bicycles, play, and Farmers Markets space. Our social for-health immune system can be paid for by defunding capitalism’s sick for-plunder everything system.
Prayer: Spirit of healing, you are our vine
Question: How am I helping to create a socially healthy immune system?
May 2, 2021 Gospel John 15:1-8 Fifth Sunday of Easter