Tough COVID questions at the Pearly Gates

I was going to write a post about the importance of kindness this COVID Christmas 2.0 – perhaps the most valuable gift we can give, especially during such trying times – but that will have to wait a few days.  Instead, I’m going to share a letter to the editor in our local paper today; it’s one that I think really deserves sharing.  It’s only a dream, keep in mind, and some of the dialogue in the dream may not be quite what you’d expect, but I hope you can relate to the spirit invoked by the telling of the dream.

This letter comes from Anne Baker of Saint John, New Brunswick, published in yesterday’s Daily Gleaner.  Thank you, Anne.

Look around to see the divine

In a dream, St. Peter called God down to the Pearly Gates for an emergency meeting: “I have a lineup of ailing COVID sufferers here.  If they end up right at the Pearly Gates, I’ll be overwhelmed, and I am uncertain if I should let them into heaven.”

God could see St. Peter’s dilemma, so he laid out a line of questions to ask the COVID sufferers:

“Did you get vaccinated?”

“If the answer is no, ask them if they thought I would intervene to save them.  Remind them that I don’t intervene.  I’m not a magician.  I am channelled through the scientists who invented the vaccines.  I am channelled through public health agencies which encourage handwashing and social distancing and wearing masks.  I’ve been poured into doctors, nurses, and other health care workers.  This is how I am manifested, and when it isn’t enough, I am there when people are told not to gather in large groups … not even in church.  Did they listen?”

“OK,” said St. Peter, “if they answer no to all that, and they end up at the Pearly Gates, should I send them to hell?”

“Peter, there is no hell.  I’m not even sure there’s a heaven.  I live inside people, not outside … I am in evidence when people do good, when civilization is advanced through science and innovation, when sensible rules for common good are obeyed.  I am manifested through compassion, when people care about each other, help each other, and support and comfort each other.  That’s me in action.”

The dreamer awoke.  St. Peter faded away, and God resided in an exhausted nurse who had just worked a healing miracle.

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