right or responsibility?

On May 11, 2021, the Governor of South Carolina signed an order requiring school districts to give parents the choice to sign a waiver exempting their children from wearing face coverings to school. That night, our family rallied together to talk out our plan. We decided to stay the course, leaving masks on for the remainder of the school year. Maddie and Hudson were a part of the conversation, but the decision was ultimately one for Jerry and me to make. As we talked about our responsibility to love our neighbors, we decided a mask was something we wanted to do because we believed it helped protect our community. We leaned into trusting our medical community and following public health guidance, which has been important to our family throughout the pandemic.  We talked about being really open to others who might make different decisions and we promised to show lots of grace to people in turmoil.

Within a few days of this decision, one of my children was called a liberal communist and a communist bastard at school for wearing a mask.

Within two and a half weeks, we received notification that our fourth grader had potentially been exposed to COVID-19, though not as a close contact exposure requiring quarantine. As we were planning to see extended family for the first time in nearly 18 months the following Monday, we decided to have our family tested to be safe. At that time, he showed no symptoms at all. While we waited on results, he began to feel achy and to complain of chills. By the next morning, we were not surprised to see his positive test results. Thankfully, my husband and I were fully vaccinated by that point and our twelve year old daughter had recently had her first vaccine dose. We stayed healthy, miraculously. For nearly three weeks, Hudson fought chills without fevers, aches and lethargy, nausea, congestion, high fevers and more. We would think he was beginning to recover and he would spiral back down again. Although he was never in danger of struggling to breathe, he was miserable and frustrated for many days. More than once, he looked at me and said, “I kept wearing my mask everywhere for others. Why didn’t they want to keep me safe, too?”

Several days into our diagnosis.

To be fair, I do understand those who say that they do not want the government to mandate a face covering for our communities. I am sure I do not want the government to have to issue such a mandate, myself. I am thankful for the freedoms and rights that are inherently afforded to me in this great country. I’m not out to lose those.

But you see, there’s something at play here that’s apart from a right. There’s a responsibility.

Dictionary.com defines a right as “a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way.”

Meanwhile, responsibility is defined as “the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something” or even “the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions without authorization.”

Perhaps I have a right to shed my mask, ignore my symptoms, and put myself in continued situations where exposure and risk are high. But I have a responsibility to my community that means even more to me. I do not choose to wear a mask again because I am ungrateful for the rights I have been given; I choose to wear it because I believe in my greater responsibility to keep my community safe. It seems that my children will have the right to attend school without a mask, but we are raising them to hold sacred their responsibility to “look not only to [their] own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:4)

Although I am aware it may not land this way, I am not writing this blog tonight to ask you to put back on your mask or consider sending your children to school with one. That is, at least as of the time I write these words, your decision to make.

There are many decisions you can make to choose responsibility over right. You can choose to stay home and to be tested when you are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 or when you know you’ve been exposed, you can talk to your healthcare provider about whether or not the vaccine is appropriate for you, you can be gracious to those who are grieving and kind to those who are ill. There are many options, but we must each make choices each day – do I choose to cling to my right or embrace my responsibility? Which will it be?

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:9-10