Sermon: Why Toilet Paper?
Text: Genesis 9:8-17
You might have seen some timely jokes on your social media feed or elsewhere recently. In one of them, a doctor says, “Unfortunately the test came back positive for COVID-19. You have coronavirus.” The man answers, “I can’t be sick. I have over 40 cases of bottled water and 200 rolls of toilet paper.”
Do you get it? I tried hard for the last few days to really understand the humour, but I still don’t get it. I think I kind of get it now, but – not really. I am still wondering to myself, “Why toilet paper?” (I would understand if it is a hand soup or tooth paste. You would definitely need them if you are quarantined.)
Since the announcement was made that Manitoba identified its first case of COVID-19, I saw that a few friends of mine were sharing pictures online of empty toilet paper sections in stores. Toilet paper, actually gone, in virtually all the stores in Winnipeg!
What’s interesting to me is that I had never seen or heard of that happening - toilet paper gone that quick and that fast. I haven’t heard any word about toilet paper from Korea, one of the first places to get hit hard with the Coronavirus. In Korea, it was all about facial masks. Everyone got freaked out about getting masks. I understand that if you go out without having your mask on in Korea, even if you do not have any symptoms, you would get criticized a lot, and deemed dangerous and irresponsible. A friend of mine, a high school friend, who still lives in my hometown, Gwang-ju, - it’s a big city, bigger than Winnipeg, and so far it has had only 4 confirmed cases - shared with 10 of us in the group chat, a picture she took when she went down to a rural smaller town, to buy masks for her family, because she heard that the post office still had masks to sell. And when she got there, she found a hundred people waiting in a long line outside the post office - every one of them with a mask on their face - . You can certainly ask, “Why masks?”
What I glimpse from these stories is that fear is cultural; its expression is culturally based. (For example, “toilet paper” - super personal Hygiene sensitive culture - vs. “masks” - super social Appearance sensitive culture - ) The ways to control the spreading of this disease - regardless of its success - whether it is through “lockdown” (in China) or “tracking” (in Korea) - are closely related to the way different cultures operate.
Here in Canada, especially in Winnipeg now, we are taking individual and proactive measures based on social/physical distancing: trusting individuals and communities to make socially responsible decisions by limiting social interactions and suspending social events, in hopes of protecting our most vulnerable citizens. These proactive acts of care will be critical in slowing down the spread of the disease. (And maybe we can reap the benefit of slowing down ourselves.) Susan Lukey, a United Church minister in Calgary, shared a message with her congregation last Thursday, saying, “Slow down. To slow down my reactions, I take a moment about once an hour to remind myself that all is good in my life right now. I take a deep breath. I remind myself that I really am safe at this moment. I enjoy the sunshine (or the snow). I think of my beloved husband, sons & mother. I repeat to myself the words of the mystic, Julian of Norwich (1342-1416). She says, “All shall be well. All shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.” And I believe her, for she lived through the bubonic plague that swept England from 1348-1350. She lived a positive philosophy in perilous times.
At this point, when both coronavirus and fear are pandemic, I would invite us to ponder two things.
The first - and I know that this question has been already asked and shared on-line: “Why are we taking this disease more seriously than climate change?” “Why have we not taken climate risks to heart?” We haven’t seen mass responses like ‘toilet papers’ and ‘masks’ - as expressions of our fear as well as our necessity - towards climate action. Can you think of any massive, crazy, spontaneous responses to fight climate change?
The common-sense precautions in each case have been widely known - washing our hands more thoroughly and more often - which may be equivalent to driving less, flying less - all of these an individual decision. To put it in other words, simple house rules: smaller fossil fuel footprints! Less greenhouse gas emissions! To keep a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius. Individual actions put together in collaboration and social agreement might work just the same way that “social distancing” would work. We are being told right now that individual action can make a huge difference – let’s channel that action into staving off the most catastrophic, pandemic effects of climate change. (People see the climate crisis as being in the future, not something we are facing now.)
We might think, those individual actions are worth nothing if the system doesn’t change - a great excuse. But at least about this pandemic, we believe social distancing will slow down, and change the course of the disease. Why not think about slowing down or changing the course of climate change? Change is hard when there are powerful industries blocking it, when the engines of money drive political power and popular thought.
As people of faith, we are encouraged to really think about our engines - the ones that run our individual, daily, social and political lives. We call them world views or faith. In times of stress, like now, we show through our actions what our world views are and what we actually really believe. Right now, with both coronavirus and climate change, we are going into a wilderness situation. We are standing at the edge of the city, a little bit like those ones who “walked away from Omelas”. (Reference: Ursula K. Le Guin's 4 page short story, "The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas.) Those who left, left with nothing; what would it mean if we walked away from Omelas with a year’s worth of toilet paper - just for us or our family? When we hoard, we are not living in faith; we are really just taking Omelas - the city - with us. If we don’t live now, in faith, choosing to buy no more than what we need, there will be no change. We power the engine of consumerism, of distrust, of greed. Systems only change when we change ourselves, our patterns, our “box”es of toilet papers - the “box”es of more and more, and bigger and bigger, faster and faster, convenience, complacency, and comfort. The boxes of individualism, status quo, entitlement, apathy.
Social distancing is based on trusting each individual’s and each organization’s decisions and ethical social responsibilities. It’s a really good practice that draws its strength from individual choices to give up a little personally for the good of all. And yet we can go deeper than that. True success in fighting COVID-19 and climate change might require a worldview change as well. Rather than praising the strength of individualism, we can also look at our interdependent nature as human communities and co-inhabitants who share our home - the earth - with all human communities and living-moving beings who are inseparable to the health of rocks, oceans, water and air, just like us. When one of us is sick, (explain and demonstrate a model in action) if we have held the next person’s hand in a circle – (metaphorically holding hands) supporting one another as family — we can’t stand upright in our position when another person gets sick and has to sit. Our posture changes - leaning towards the sick, our two feet move. Our eyes (which may have been facing the front) move to see the collapsed. Our children and the children’s children are in the heart of the centre and here we are to care for and love them. It seems that there are fundamentally different worldviews in our time: the box worldview - based on hierarchy, positions and distance - and the circle worldview that operates on deep interconnections of each individual and their social roles like family interlocking through care.
Whether we are in the coronavirus wilderness or climate change wilderness, if we walked away from Omelas, as a community, we should think first, how we can be a community of faith, with a different world view - a complete departure from the city of Omelas - in a new era that calls for resurgent faith.
Ha Na Park
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