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"…for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind" (1 Corinthians 3:5)
Dr. Harvey Alter was awakened by the persistent ringing of the phone at around 4:45 in the morning of October 5, 2020. By his telling of the story, he ignored the call the first and second time, annoyed at being disturbed. He got up to finally answer on the third, ready to angrily tell the caller to stop but was instead shocked to hear a man introduce himself as the Secretary General of the Nobel Prize calling from Stockholm. Harvey was informed that he won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Dr. Alter (NIH, USA) along with Michael Houghton (University of Edmonton, Canada) and Charles M Rice (Rockefeller University, USA) were awarded the Nobel Prize for their contributions to the discovery of Hepatitis C virus. Hepatitis C is a blood-borne viral infection that causes liver inflammation and subsequent scarring. The discovery made possible blood tests and curative therapies that have benefited millions of people. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated that 71 million people have chronic Hepatitis C virus infection worldwide! Dr. Alter in back to back interviews was quick to give credit to many research collaborators with different areas of expertise.
When asked how he was going to spend the rest of his day as a new Nobel laureate, Dr. Alter told a funny story on making his way back to his office via a shortcut through the garage located in front of the building where they had just concluded a press conference: “When I got there, there was a security guard and the guard said, you can’t come in you haven’t been screened (for COVID-19)…He said, you have to go around to the front. So, I said, would it make a difference if I told you that I won the Nobel Prize today, and he says, that’s nice. You have to go around to the front.” Dr. Alter self-deprecatingly summarized that one doesn’t get “immediate rewards.”
I relate the above story as I focus on the 5th verse of this scripture passage, when Paul first give thanks for God’s grace, for the gift of speech and knowledge…We all have God-given gifts; all valuable and precious and I see them as the many signs of light in the world. When we use our different gifts – the gift of brilliant and inquiring minds that lead to transformative research, the gift of compassion, the gift of care, the gift of faithfully enforcing rules without exception – for the benefit of many, we honor God. As we go through the Advent season and collectively muddle through this time of the pandemic, let us be intentionally mindful of those gifts we have and use them to shine the light going forward.
Prayer: Lord, we give thanks for our many gifts – our innumerable and different points of light that will lead us all out of this dark, dark world of the COVID-19 pandemic.