This is a test…

This pandemic is a test of your empathy and compassion 1. It’s a test to see if you’re willing to make even the smallest sacrifices to protect others from a potentially harmful disease. A test to practice loving your neighbor as much as yourself 2 .

It’s a test to see how much you care for the community by giving up the personal pleasures of restaurants, movies, and other entertainments for the sake of keeping strangers healthy.

It’s a test to see if your are willing to give up seeing family and friends in order to keep them safe.

It’s a test to see if you’d make even the smallest changes to protect others — such as wearing a mask when in public 3 or keeping a modest distance.

It’s not a hard test. It’s simply a defining one.

Karuna ↩

Mark 12:31 and Matthew 22:36-40. This notion is alive in Islam as well ↩

The mask is not to protect you from others (though, it does to an extent). It’s to protect others from you, the wearer. ↩