Look Up (Franciska Coleman)
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. (Ps. 121: 1-2)
One of the most embarrassing moments of my life was when I was a young law student at a clerkship interview. The judge made me so nervous that I totally bombed the interview. To make matters worse, when I got up to leave, I opened the door to the coat closet instead of the office door. It has been a while now, so I do not know if I opened a second wrong door as well, but I do recall a moment of real anxiety, standing in the office surrounded by four doors with identical door knobs and being unable to remember which one led to the hallway. The dilemma ended when a voice behind me said very kindly, “Look up.” When I took my eyes off the doorknobs and looked up, there was, of course, a red exit sign over the door leading out.
It is the rare person these days who has not experienced moments of anxiety when facing the death and uncertainty that the coronavirus has brought in its wake. Which door will allow us to exit this pandemic with the fewest lives lost and the least amount of suffering? In deciding, we often cannot help but focus on the doorknobs—doorknobs of science, logic, politics, and even common sense. One of the most unnerving things about the coronavirus, however, is that it seems to have no easy answers, no easy outs. Instead, it reminds us almost daily that no matter how carefully we focus on the doorknobs, they cannot guarantee an exit from the current situation. We may just as easily end up in the coat closet, in some deeper, darker, more fraught situation.
This very real fear has produced intense fights over which door we should try. Some insist that, “We have to open the economy or people in the U.S. will lack money to buy food; the global food chain may even collapse.” Others say, “We have to continue the quarantine because thousands will die if we open the economy too soon, and people will still lack money to buy food.” The fights on social media and throughout our nation that pit lives against livelihoods reflect sincere concerns about the future. And when I am not careful, I find myself speaking as if flattening or not flattening the curve depends solely on the choices we make as a nation, rather than the will of God.
As a constitutional law professor, my commitments to caring for the fatherless and the widows (James 1:27) have long taken the form of seeking to amplify the voices of vulnerable groups in such democratic decision-making and of advocating for equal concern for these groups in policy enforcement. Thus, I do not take lightly the implications of the various policies we debate, all of which will disproportionately affect the poor and working classes who do not have the luxury of working remotely and who will be pushed off unemployment by state re-openings. At the same time, I am convinced that in the larger scheme of things, the impact of these important decisions are limited by our own finitude.
“[Y]ou do not know what tomorrow will bring,” scripture reminds us. “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” (James 4: 14-1) In this passage, I take James to be giving us two roles at once. Facing countless doors with seemingly identical doorknobs, it is the role of Christians to study solutions and find those that benefit the powerless; it is our job, in other words, to choose a door as best we can. But that is not our only role. We are also intended to be that kind voice in the background encouraging others to look up. God knows the best exit from this situation, and if we would look up and look to him, he has promised to make a way (see 2 Chr. 7:14 ).
In times of crisis, dependence is one of the most uncomfortable feelings one can have. Yet, for Christians, it is one that yields the greatest rewards. We are called to trust in God—to take all we know and do all we can while also placing ourselves in the hands of God. That can be hard to do when our situation feels dire, but God constantly calls us to turn our eyes to him—to look to him and to depend on his help.
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. (Ps. 121: 1-2)
We were not made to be self-sufficient, but rather to depend on God. No matter the crisis, we must never forget to look up.
Franciska Coleman has been part of The Carver Project’s faculty fellowship as a visiting professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. This fall, she will begin as an assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin (Madison).
Further reading:
John Piper, Coronavirus and Christ (2020)
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