Have you ever stacked up dominoes and knocked them down? In a way, we are all like a game of dominoes – we are all connected, and during this pandemic it can feel like we are all stacked up ready to fall. We have this sense that this is an inevitable situation and there is no way to stop it from affecting us.

People respond to this feeling in several ways. Some mock it. Others are in denial or are experiencing grief. And for some it leads to feelings of resentment, bitterness and anger, looking for someone to blame for this pandemic, someone who caused the first domino to fall.

Looking for someone to blame for what troubles us is not new. Think about Moses and Jesus – when things were going well the crowds followed them and praised them. But then as things got difficult, the crowds turned on Moses and on Jesus and blamed them for all their problems. In more recent past, we have done this too. We have a history of naming a virus by the people or ethnicity that we think caused it and it perpetuates hatred and violence.

Scott Berinato, a senior editor at Harvard Business Review, wrote an article about how the discomfort we are feeling may be grief. It’s an anticipatory grief and a sense of impending loss because we fear what we are going to lose. It’s normal to feel these things.

But there’s another way to play dominoes. The original way. Dominoes weren’t made for us to stack up and knock over. If you look at the face of every domino, they have numbers or blank spaces and it’s all about connecting the dominoes. The way you win the game is you become imaginative about connecting – you study the dominoes and look for ways to connect, not ways to knock someone down.

The way to play dominoes is figuring out how we connect for good. How we connect in love. In 1 John 4:19, scripture says we learn love through the character of God and then we discover we are capable of that kind of love because of God.

So, where does the pandemic of hate come from? You may not think that you hate people. You may say, “I’m not blaming the virus on a particular culture or person. I didn’t attack someone.”

There’s a famous teaching of Jesus that helps us understand hate as a spectrum. In Luke 14:26, Jesus says unless you hate your father, mother, brother, sister, your own self, you can’t be my disciple. Why would Jesus say you have to hate people?

The key that unlocks the meaning of hate is in Matthew 10:27, where Matthew writes about the same story. Here it says that unless you love me more than father, mother, sister, brother, even your own life you can’t be my disciple.

Why the difference? In both the Hebrew and Greek languages, the word hate is a spectrum. The Greek word for hate can be translated as “neglect by degree.” It is about the choosing of one and the not choosing of another. When Jesus says unless you “hate” others, he is saying you must choose me over all others.

In that context, maybe we are haters. Maybe we all risk neglecting others by degree when we choose to think of ourselves first, instead of thinking about others. In a very pragmatic and practical sense, we can be haters. It’s like seeing the stacked dominoes and feeling as though it is inevitable that we will be knocked down versus looking for imaginative, innovative ways to connect with one another.

Deliverance and relief will come. In every pandemic this is true. Researchers, academics, leaders across the world are figuring out how to work together. God created the world for imaginative, innovative connection. And He is the connector.

Think about the story of Esther. Her whole story turns on a virus – the virus of hate. In this case, there is a conspirator who is trying to influence the leaders to exterminate the Jews. Esther is called upon by her cousin Mordecai to do something. He says to her: “Who knows but for such a time as this you were made Queen.”

But before Esther responded to the call, she and Mordecai had to be converted. Mordecai took Esther in when she’s orphaned. She was a minority, a captive in a foreign land. Mordecai spent this vulnerable young girl’s whole childhood teaching her how to protect herself. When circumstances shift, he realizes that his instruction was incomplete. He taught her how to protect herself, but he hadn’t told her that advocating for others is also important. These two are not in conflict, protecting herself and others were both things she could commit to.

Esther ultimately responds, “if I die, I die” and she sees that there is more to her life than her protecting herself. We now have an opportunity to show the world we know how the game is played and won. Just like Mordecai learns and teaches Esther. And just like the heroes of history: women and men willing to sacrifice themselves for others.

To beat the coronavirus, we have to physically distance ourselves. But in reality, we can’t win with social distancing – when close ourselves off from each other, we become lonely, fearful and depressed. That is why the World Health Organization recently said we need to shift our vocabulary from social distancing to physical distancing. This is more than semantics. We know we need each other. We still need to be social, but during this time we have to physically distance ourselves.

Our willingness to socially distance ourselves is what leads to fear and hate, it’s the root of racism, sexism, every ism. And it didn’t begin with technology. It started when sin entered the garden of Eden. Jesus came into the world, he closed the distance between us, to show us a different way. For those who stacked up the dominoes in their favor, he disrupted everything. And for the vulnerable, outcast and hurting, for those who needed connection, Jesus restored them.

There’s two ways to play dominoes: one of them kills us, and the other revives us. Let’s think connection in order to cure the pandemic of hate.

Questions:

Go to LoveFirst.org to submit a question. The first three people to submit a question will get a free copy of Love First: Ending Hate Before It’s Too Late.

Why do some people deny the impact of the coronavirus and do not take it seriously?

Three possible answers:

Some people lack information or have misinformation.

There are some people who make a living off of creating strife and stirring up controversy.

And some are grieving – and one of the stages of grief is denial. (Refer to the HBR article)

Why do some people panic, and some people don’t? What do I do if I meet someone who is panicking?

Panic can be rooted in previous trauma, family systems, implicit memory. And there are a lot of reasons why someone panics or doesn’t panic. The most important thing we can do is meet people where they are.

Our Family minister and executive director of the Genesis counseling center, Dr. Major Boglin, recommends that when people are panicked or concerned, we should meet them in their pain. Don’t scold them, judge them for panicking or dismiss their concerns. Instead, create a place of safe connection. Assure them of your concern and connection and let them share with you. Let them talk about their concerns. As they feel more comfortable, safe and calm, they likely will be able to move out of fear and into a problem-solving mindset.

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