The Cult of Ignorance

Just over a month ago, as Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the Democratic primary, I shared this quote from Isaac Asimov:

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread, winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

That seems like a long time ago.  Over the past several days, and generally in the response to COVID-19, our commitment to ignorance has been on full display.  I'm not talking about honest ignorance either, not knowing something is no crime and all of us have had to address some things of which we were perhaps blissfully ignorant: like how to run a Zoom meeting or how to film a sermon and post it to Youtube.  Teachers have had to adapt to teaching remotely.  All of us have had to change our perceptions of things like social distancing and face masks in the grocery store.  There were so many things we were not aware of on the leading edge of this pandemic, but I'm not talking about that ignorance.
I'm talking about the kind of ignorance that is willful and stubborn, and refuses to become anything other than ignorance.  This is the ignorance of our President and his "Liberate (name of state with stay at home order and a democratic governor here)" tweets.  This is the ignorance of the people who violate the isolation policies with flags, swastikas (which they claim are "ironic") and openly carried weapons.  These people are taking their cues from the aggressive ignorance of our current chief executive.  They are the bullies who never learned that the smarter kids in the class might actually be of help to them in understanding their biology assignment and instead chose to shove him into a locker or throw her pile of books down the hall.
Trump is their hero, because that's who he is, the big blustery, let's not think too much sort, who tries to be the main man while the nerdy expert (Fauci) facepalms in the background.  It has been a temptation for me to simply ascribe evil motives to Trump and his cadre of sycophants, but this crisis reveals him to be nothing more than a particularly dangerous ignoramus with a narcissistic personality disorder, in other words, a garden variety bully.
He is not alone.  This morning I saw this picture of a nurse in scrubs blocking a vehicle protesting the stay at home orders:

That man is standing for his own life and the lives of his co-workers and his family. The people in the truck are out there for the sake of fear and greed and no small amount of anger, which masquerades as patriotism.  It occurred to me that the picture reminded me of something else:

The opponent in this picture was actual tyranny.  The "re-open America" protesters think they are this man, but they are nothing of the sort.  If the tyranny they think they're protesting was real, it would have been police in riot gear instead of a nurse in scrubs confronting their little shenanigan.
This comparison is both alarming and oddly hopeful though, because there is some evidence that the ignoramuses are losing their grip on our hearts and minds.  Trump's approval rating is low, even for him, and most of the people I know (even the ones who voted for him) are starting to tune him out. The loony hanging out of the pickup truck window is not being hailed as a patriot or a hero, and thankfully our government did not make her a martyr. 
If we learn anything from this I hope it is that our cult of ignorance is too dangerous to continue.  I have the distinct feeling that this pandemic will not be the last one we face.  We cannot continue into the future pretending it is not possible.  COVID-19, as the ignoramuses like to point out, is not too different from the flue or a common cold, a lot of people with it will survive.  What if there was a more catastrophic disease, like Ebola, that manifested similar contagion patterns and latency?
It is a possibility that we should not try and ignore, because doing so could lead to an extinction level event akin to the black plague or the what happened among Native American populations in the immediate aftermath of European contact with the New World.
We have a choice to persist in our cult of ignorance, or to learn from what this has to teach us.  I suggest the latter course, no matter what political tribe you belong to, we are all part of the human race.

Petrichor

For someone who does as much walking outside as I do, I very seldom find myself caught in the rain.  Maybe it's because I have access to several weather forecasting apps on my phone, or because I tend to pay attention to the rather obvious skies above Southern Maryland.  Today I had planned to go out kayaking on the lake, but the aforementioned weather forecasts contained a marine warning about possible thunderstorms and strong winds.  I had no desire to be out on the water in the event of such weather, so I did the sensible thing and just went for a walk.
About halfway around the lake, I felt the first drops and heard a distant roll of thunder.  Time to speed up the old dog.  It quickly became obvious that we were in for a bath.  Instead of getting in a hurry though, I actually took a moment to slow down as the rain began to intensify I got to experience that unique scent that has its own special word: petrichor.  The definition is that smell when rain starts to hit dry earth.  The woods are dry because the leaves aren't yet out and the warm sun bakes everything to a crisp much more quickly than it does in the summer when things are shaded.  I don't know exactly what causes petrichor to happen only at the beginning of a heavy rain, but as I gratefully soaked in that unique odor I felt that it might be perhaps more mystical than a scientific explanation about water mixing with minerals.  It seemed like the earth was breathing out, the way you might before inhaling a deep breath to dive to the bottom of a pool.
I had one of those nature moments, where paganism suddenly makes a lot of sense. In a world where everything seems alive and connected, of course there are spirits in the trees and gods in the soil. Things seem particularly alive, and if you let yourself, you feel connected to that life in a way that is deeply significant.  As the storm got a bit more intense the petrichor moment vanished and it was time to hurry again, it would be a real shame to do all this social distancing to avoid COVID-19 only to get zapped by lightning.
Back in the world of non-pagan spirituality I am thinking about what we're missing during this Holy Week spent in isolation. What would we be doing and thinking during this time absent the pandemic? This week is the petrichor moment, the breathing out of the last breath, but with a purpose that surely has life at its core.  Jesus often taught about the necessity of dying and laying things down in order for the new life of the Kingdom to take hold.  I think that's a pattern in nature as well: the breathing out of the dryness with an unmistakable moment of petrichor, ready to receive the water that brings life out of seemingly dead things.
On the cross, Jesus says, "tetelestai," it is finished and then surrenders his spirit, he breaths out his last, giving up what is destined to fade and go away, so that something new can inherit that space, so that new life can come. Death is a part of the cycle, as is dormancy; light is necessary, as is darkness.  That unique and beautiful petrichor is not something you encounter all the time, only after a period of dryness will the mere anticipation of water set it in motion.