Remember when we were kids and used our snow saucers as shields while we fought off fierce dragons or legions of armies?  Or maybe we were the mom with our kids in the passion play at church playing the role of a Roman soldier.  We threw a red towel around their shoulder and stuck a hub-cap in their hand as their armor.

Just a few weeks before our lives turned upside down, I had attended a Women’s conference.  One of the presenters talked about the Roman soldiers had another type of shield other than the one we so lamely depicted with our hub-caps and snow saucers.  Historians tell us that this shield, called scutum or scuta-plural, was about 4 feet by 2 ½ feet and weighed up to15 pounds or more.  This would be more like pulling the fender off of a VW bug and running around with that playing army!

Anyway, the purpose of this shield was to protect more of the soldier’s body, they could crouch down and protect their head as well as their middle.  When the soldiers were marching in tight formation, the scuta not only better protected the individual, but the whole group as well.  AND, if things got really bad, they could huddle together in a ‘testudo’ or ‘tortoise formation’ with some of the soldiers holding their shields facing the front or side and those in the middle turning their shields upwards to form a canopy or shell over them all. 

The point of the presentation was that we are called to provide protection not only for ourselves and our families but for others as well.  Sometimes we need to put our shields together.  Now, especially in this time of the pandemic, I don’t want to be crawling under a turtle shell with all of you.  But I do want to challenge us to symbolically create a tortoise formation around our families and our communities.  We need to look at how our thoughts and actions can be united for the greater good.

The greater good- a term we maybe learned in a philosophy class, or perhaps by reading the classics in High School English.  Lately, I’ve been pondering that our current Covid pandemic can’t be starkly labeled as either a health crisis or an economic crisis.  It is foremost an ethical crisis.  There are valid arguments coming from all directions.  Yes, lives will be lost if we ease or stop social distancing.  Yes, lives will be lost from suicide and addictions if we don’t ease restrictions.  I don’t know the answers, but I do feel that I am getting a clearer picture of the right question.  

I believe if we all navigate the days, weeks and months ahead keeping in mind others’ needs as well as our own, we will be better positioned for getting this right. Or finding the greater good when there are no right answers.  I am hoping I can hold my shield up high for you, and that you will hold one up for me.