Personal choice needs to be used wisely for the sake of community as a whole

I DON’t know who first used the term “Freedom Day” to refer to the lifting of Covid restrictions last Monday.

I have to admit it was not a phrase that I was comfortable with. After all, for those with underlying health conditions, people with autoimmune difficulties or others who find the overnight return to no masks and no social distancing terrifying, I imagine the last thing they felt as they woke was “free”.

I then heard one television reporter referring to July 19 as “Personal Choice” day. Well, that seemed slightly better, but I couldn’t help feeling that we still hadn’t hit on the right phrase.

To have personal choice can feel like a good thing, but there is always the danger that we interpret that choice as meaning: “I can do what I like, regardless of other people’s thoughts and feelings”. That’s surely not how good communities work.

I thought of the man who, when encouraged by Jesus to love his neighbour, asked the question: “Who is my neighbour?” The story Jesus told of the man attacked by robbers and helped by someone who, in other circumstances, he would have considered his enemy is well known. We call the tale “The Good Samaritan”, and that phrase has entered our language as a reminder that we are all responsible for one another and that our freedom is limited by the impact of what our actions might have on others.

Political leaders have, in recent days, been encouraging us to use our own judgement. As we do, so we cannot do this in isolation. We all have a part to play in continuing to move towards a time when we see this pernicious virus put in its place. That means in the coming weeks and months we might be free to act in certain ways, but for the sake of others we will not do so. For all these reasons, I like to think of last Monday as “personal responsibility day”.