​The movie “Monuments Men” was a more-or-less-true-to-life story about Allied officers who went into Europe as World War 2 was winding down in order to save... a bunch of paintings.
True, it’s not exactly Saving Private Ryan. Here’s one response to such a story: “Wait a minute; millions of human beings were dying! Why would anyone waste any time or energy on a bunch of paintings when human lives were at stake?”
I want to take a moment to recognize the basic justice of this question. If you saw a person about to fall off a cliff, and ten feet away you saw a painting by Vermeer about to fall off the same cliff, would you go save the person, or the painting?
Put that way, the question should answer itself. Any human is worth more than any work of art, and the reason is theological; Ephesians 2.10 famously says that “we are his [God’s] workmanship...” [literally, poem, artwork]. This tells us that we are masterfully crafted expressions of God’s creative nature.
So think of the cliff scenario as two artistic masterpieces of unequal worth in equal danger. But what would happen if you change the situation slightly? Let’s say that there are a dozen people standing at the cliff’s edge watching the painting and the person about to fall. Most of the people rush over to help the human being, of course. Is there any reason that even one of them would be justified in rushing over to grab the painting?
Art is an enormous topic with lots of controversial opinions floating around inside. But if we keep the discussion theological (for the sake of the argument) we can see a pretty direct line between the artwork expressed in creation – the way God molded earth and clay into an anthropoid shape before he breathed his life into it – and the way we human beings put care and concern into the things we produce; whether it’s someone taking pains to craft a door that will fit into the doorframe on the front of their house, arranging an outfit that will complement one’s figure and represent their own aesthetic, or creating a visual impression on a canvass with paint. JRR Tolkien called us ‘sub-creators’; men and women who make because we were made, who are objects of the great Subject, who express ourselves in myriad creative ways because God has expressed his ultimate creativity in us.
From this point of view, any work of art has the potential to be an homage to God as the divine Artist, and anyone who feels the impulse to preserve artwork may potentially do so as an act of service toward God.
Of course, no one would ever be justified in saving a piece of art in lieu of saving a human being. But if, in the conflagration of a world war, with millions of lives being thrown into the conflict in order to oppose evil, a few men stand up in front of the altarpiece and say “This, too, deserves to be preserved” how can anyone argue?
After all, the Nazis approached the art of the conquered European nations exactly the same way they approached its populations: They would either own it for their own purposes, or completely destroy it. There is a disturbing and telling similarity between the Nazi impulse to quickly end the lives of their perceived enemies before they lost the war, and their impulse to abolish every piece of art before they lost the war. To save the artistic heritage of Europe was to oppose Hitler's agenda.
And we might also ask on behalf of the survivors, those few who were able to be reunited with their lost treasures, what it means to them to have been reunited with a particular family heirloom. What about those candlesticks which belonged to their mother? That small portrait which hung in their father’s study? The print which used to be in their grandmother’s room? How might they respond if we were to ask them whether art is worth saving?
On the face of it, art deserves to be preserved because it begs to be made, because it is the irresistible desire of the artist or artisan which is an echo of God’s on creativity.
​Of course, once you’ve granted that basic idea, the discussion becomes more specific, because not all art is the same: does all art deserve to be preserved? Which pieces merit our efforts? Who gets to decide? All of a sudden, our little discussion has become a murky one which requires nuance... but that is a topic for another time.

The first half of 2020 is being dominated by one issue; and as we sit in our houses and apartments, bemoaning the virus which has us locked up like rhesus monkeys, we're inundated by the shrapnel of the internet - the most pervasive revolution to happen to communication since Adam discovered he had someone to talk to besides his cat. And all of a sudden, one of the most important issues anyone can talk about is whether or not it's ok for two people to go outside and talk.
Who could have imagined that conversation and hugging would generate more memes than the 2020 presidential race? Whether that's a positive or negative development, I leave for you to decide. What I want to talk about is the way people have responded to those 2 folks out there, the ones talking to each other, the ones who aren't "social distancing".
An overwhelming percentage of social media advice consists of something like "stay at home, idiot-moron-jerk". This is an approach to public health which seeks to shame people into good behavior, and the practice of shaming has been around a long time, as everyone will recall who was forced to read The Scarlet Letter. In fact, the only response to covid-19 which is more predominant in my social media feeds is the humorous response. I heartily approve of the use of humor in dark or distressing times, even though it can be overdone. On the other hand, I'm also plenty accustomed to public shaming, because I live in America; so I expected people to publicly shame TP hoarders and hand-sneezers and party goers. What I didn't expect was the occasional use of shame directed at other people for things that have nothing to do with public health.
Some people have been using this time to start something new; getting back into that hobby, or learning a new skill, or getting in shape. And unfortunately, it's from these people that a new, insidious strain of shame sometimes comes. It's the kind of shame you sometimes sense in someone who is flush with new or unexpected success. 
Unfortunately, one of the curious side-effects of success is a desire to motivate other people. This can be healthy, but it can also be toxic. If your idea of 'motivating' people is to tell them that they are undisciplined and sloppy because they aren't using a pandemic to lose weight or start a home-based business, then you're trying to use guilt as a weapon to motivate people just as surely as if you're slapping a scarlet "F" for "failure" on their chest.
The horrible thing about guilt is that it can motivate people, just like a loaded gun can. But you cannot sustain a guilt-or-shame based motivation for very long. The reason for that is that guilt and shame are terrible; they erode the soul, they push down on a person's spirit the way too much weight on the shoulders pushes down on the spine. Eventually, if you carry shame or guilt long enough, you either collapse - or you stop caring. Both of those reactions are a way to get out from under the burden of something which is impossible to carry forever.
So whenever someone is barking at me for not having enough discipline to hunker down and blah blah blah, I have to remind myself that guilt isn't a long-term solution; therefore, anything which I do because I feel guilty isn't going to last. You know who else should remember that? Anyone who's trying to use shame to get people to feel productive in the middle of a quarantine.
So, to avoid falling into the trap of using shame to get people to stop using shame, allow me to say this: If you are reaching a goal, or fulfilling a dream, or simply finding ways to remain productive, enjoy it. You should use your success to encourage others. Go ahead and inspire them! It's so much better to reach down toward someone than to look down on them.