four tests

This week something miraculous happened. A simple website popped up allowing us to request four Covid tests to be shipped to our home.

If you have ever been intimately involved in anything the government produces, this rapid simplicity was nothing short of a miracle.

And yet, people are fussing.

I get it. If you’re not a family of four, this isn’t enough. If you don’t live at a recognized residential address, this isn’t enough. If you are homeless, this isn’t enough.

But what it is, is something.

It takes a lot of money and time and staffing to box up and ship varying amounts of items to various people at various addresses. Somebody in power made a choice to simplify the process. Four tests come off of the assembly line, get placed in a box, a label gets slapped on them, and the post office delivers them accurately, because, hello, they already know where we live.

I am not mad the government chose the simplest way.

In fact, I am thrilled.

It may not be perfect, but it is still good.

And we, as a people who receive these tests, can make it better.

Are you a single person who doesn’t need four tests? Talk to your friends and neighbors to see if they are lacking. Share in your abundance.

Are you a person who has access to free tests through your health insurance? Many of you do: two tests per person per month. If so, use your insurance to get the tests you need and when your free government tests arrive, contact your local homeless shelter or church food pantry or uninsured friends. Could somebody else use them?

The government is here to help us live in a collective space as a collective body, but it is up to us to create community.

Let’s loaves and fishes the heck out of these tests by taking what has been given to us to create our own miracle.