A timely message as public health concerns have led government officials to ask Americans to “shelter at home” during the COVID-19 crisis, and have unveiled what our priorities are have become as a society. This message encourages us to set our priorities right, and to make the best of our time at home.

<p>A timely message as public health concerns have led government officials to ask Americans to “shelter at home” during the COVID-19 crisis, and have unveiled what our priorities are have become as a society. This message encourages us to set our priorities right, and to make the best of our time at home.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Weimar University

Allen Lloyd

House Arrest

It's nice to see faces on a day when social distancing has become a household word in America or a household phrase.

How many of you have heard of the term social distancing before a few months ago?

Okay, a couple of you, but most did not raise their hand.

And you know there's been a lot of changes in the world since this virus was passed from a bat being consumed in Wuhan, China, to a human, and then spread quickly from human to human until it has now encircled the globe.

And some people have wondered about this quarantine thing.

Some have even mentioned that could this all be a government conspiracy just to give an excuse for governments to control people?

And actually, I think this was answered aptly by our pastor who's not in attendance here this evening.

But I'd like to just have you listen to what he had to say this morning.

I actually walked by when this was happening.

I didn't realize what he was saying at that time, but it came to me just a few minutes ago and let's take a look at this.

In times of stress and anxiety, people are given to be more open to conspiracy theories.

The other day I was talking to someone in the community as a result of the shutdown, and they'd been in their home for 5 or 6 days, and they were worried to come out.

And you know I began thinking, is there anything that old book says about quarantine, about being put aside because we're worried about disease?

And then I remember that ancient book of Leviticus where God's rules concerning who could come into the camp and out of the camp and how he would take care of sin, but also sanitation and public health issues.

I remember that book and I looked and I began to read chapter 13, chapter 14, chapter 15.

I saw something that really gave me great peace.

Quarantine didn't begin with our government.

When he saw that there was a problem, he protected his people by taking those that maybe had a disease or maybe had a sickness and keeping them outside the camp, first of all for 7 days.

Then they were rechecked and then another 7 days.

And this was all done by the priests who were also the physicians of the day.

And a calm came over me because I realized that these same procedures, these same ideas that we're seeing today that are meant to protect us, are something that was originated by God himself.

You know, as a Christian I'm called to be a priest, the priesthood of all believers.

Bringing protection when it's needed, not to separate 1 another for all time, but maybe just for a short time until we get healthy and we can come back again as a congregation and come together and praise because we took the precautions we needed and that just ministered to my heart and I hope it does So it is a reminder, you might want to get those verses out that quarantines have been around for a long time and they are for our own good.

And by following the recommendations, as we recommend everyone do here at Weimar as well, We're actually making the world a healthier place.

And we might also be protected from disease.

I know even though COVID has not really hit this community, at least on an exponential level yet, it can.

And it's even affecting some younger people in Sacramento, not too far away from here.

I know there's critically ill people in their 30s in intensive care units down there and communicating with hospitalists, which I also am.

And they're starting to see the exponential rise there.

And what we're doing can indeed protect the community.

So I also realize that this, what has happened the last couple of weeks, when there's a time of crisis, we can start to realize what the priorities are, what our own priorities are.

And this crisis that has hit this country and in a large way, it's an impending crisis because in reality, the flu has killed far more people than COVID-19 at this point.

But if we don't do the right things, this has the potential to way outdo the flu.

But because of this pending crisis and the knowledge that we have of it, we have been able to see what at least this country's priorities are.

And some may have considered prior to this that competitive sports was like at the top of the list of priorities in America.

And you know you might be tempted to think that because whenever you turn on a TV, there's some competitive sporting event going on.

I was working in the hospital the other day, and this guy was trying to entertain himself by trying to find sports.

The ESPN channel, I was thinking maybe they ought to just go and see a chess match where they're 6 feet apart or something, you know.

My son who's a tennis player and a golfer says, those are the 2 sports that you can still play and have social distancing.

And they've even made rules locally here that you can actually rent a golf cart all by yourself for the same price now so that you can isolate on the golf course and and still be out in nature.

But clearly sports is not a top priority because they canceled all the sports.

They canceled all of these sports and even canceled tennis matches.

And you know we just said tennis could be played but you can't watch the tennis matches with social distancing.

And so competitive sports, we find out, not really a top priority in America.

It kind of, Some people might manipulate it into us thinking that, but when a crisis came, we realized it wasn't number 1.

We might also think that in America especially, because it's been criticized now for a long time in regards to what many consider an evil word, capitalism, that economic prosperity is actually the real number 1 priority in America.

We're actually voluntarily going in to a significant depression.

The stock market has fallen dramatically as a result of social distancing, businesses closing, all the non-essential businesses in California have closed.

And There is clearly when it comes to priorities, economic prosperity was not up there to compete with this priority.

And so you might think, well, you know, there were other priorities of America.

Freedom to travel to beautiful locations.

Well, even that turns out is not a top priority.

You can't even go to the 1 of the most beautiful countries in the world, New Zealand.

And hopefully some of you are watching from New Zealand here today.

In fact some of our students left this week to New Zealand before it closed And of course a lot of other students left as well.

We're sad that they left, but we're glad that they had an option to continue their education and still leave.

In fact, I was looking at a blog since I'm on the Chronicle list, which is a magazine that a lot of college presidents get throughout the nation.

I started to see a blog from the Chronicle of students bitterly complaining about what is happening in America.

Because they said, you know, here we were working towards these things and without any choice of ours, we were told we had to leave.

We were told we had to do this, that, and the other.

Weimar being a small school, there were options that were given in regards to this.

And the students that were complaining in the Chronicle were complaining that how come virtually no school was giving options?

It was just mandates in regards to how to obtain their education.

And by the way, we found out face-to-face education, which most educators still state today is the best way to be educated in a live environment where there's a classroom and a discussion.

Face-to-face was not a top priority in this country compared to this priority.

Now, education was still a priority because the government said that they want to continue education, if at all possible, at a distance learning.

And even we could call this distance learning even here tonight because of the the fact that you have to be at least 6 feet away from me and we are spread out but this is still the face-to-face aspect of things.

But education is enough of a priority that it was put on the list of essentials in the Placer County document that people are allowed to travel if they need to for distance education.

In other words, if they don't have access to an internet and they need to travel for that access, that's an appropriate traveling aspect and you won't violate the travel ban.

But, so you know, freedom to move about at will, freedom to do what we want to do whenever we do it, That's not a top priority.

Even concerts, canceled, not a top priority.

Meetings in convention centers, shut down, not a top priority.

And so this crisis has revealed what is the top priority What would you say America's top priority is, as at least by evidence of what has taken place here?

Somebody said some Americans' priorities are toilet paper.

And yeah, someone sent me, of course I work in the GI field, but somebody sent me that if you need 144 rolls of toilet paper for a 14 day quarantine, you should have been seeing a doctor long before COVID-19.

And so, you know, there were other issues that you should not have been putting on hold until this time, but nonetheless, yes, there are a lot of shortages of different things.

And of course, there are businesses that have profited from this quarantine.

Anyone hear what some of the businesses are that have significantly profited outside of the toilet paper industry?

Yeah, Lysol, things having to do with cleanliness, hand sanitizers.

House Arrest

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