If it seems endless, that’s because it is — the inquiry and debate over covid vaccinations. We’re generally not big — at all — on vaccines. We fought the local school on vaccinations for our kids, and opted out of what we could opt out of on moral grounds, or if there were indications, however tenuous, of long-term side effects such as autism. We fought not to have our kids exposed to any direct link to stem-cell derivatives from aborted fetuses. Once, when required to take certain vaccinations to enter an African nation, we traveled an hour away to get an alternative that had no such fetal connection.

All this only goes so far. Last week, our youngest daughter was not able to register at a state university in Florida — yes, Florida — because she was missing one of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccinations, which she was forced to get at the county health department, and did. Vaccines have long been a requirement in education, the military, and other endeavors. They long have been required to enter certain nations. There is no such requirement, at this point, for the covid one, though private enterprises, medical operations, and governmental agencies are free to mandate them among workers in most states, and the trend is decidedly in the direction of vaccination, with the surge in what they call the Delta variant.

This is not a happy mutation of covid. It is striking much more virulently among the young — sending what previously, through other stages of the pandemic, seemed like inviolable teenagers — to ICU units, where they are sometimes intubated. In some cases, they beg for the vaccine with their dying breaths. Others ascertain — others believe — that the vaccine is more dangerous than covid itself is (or until now, at any rate).

We respect both viewpoints but go back to what one must: the Holy Spirit. Pray for what you should do, in the quickly changing arena. Ask the Holy Spirit to direct you (as opposed to the latest YouTube sensation).

This we get all the time: a person, often with a “Dr.” before his or her name, making dramatic and definitive pronouncements, most of the time with no direct, hands-on experience in actual coronavirus laboratories. There are many amateur “experts.”

Be careful of this. There are about 985,000 people in the U.S. alone with a “Dr.” before his or her name and “MD” after. That’s almost a million. Many others have that “Dr.” because they have an advanced academic degree (but are not medical professionals). Not all of them are covid experts. Also, it is very easy to make a professional-seeming and definitive video clip on the vaccine, even tying it into conspiracies. You really need to discern these. One notes that the C.D.C. — just one research arm of government — has 1,700 scientists. We long have warned about attempts at global control. We often gravitate toward the arcane. We have no doubt that there can be side effects, as there are side effects with virtually anything, especially medications (witness those ads on TV).

We are not proponents of “pharmakeia” — the age-old practice of occult chemistry, practiced especially among medieval European witches, to control or harm people. We much prefer the natural approach.

Unfortunately, covid may not be natural. It may have synthetic components. If so, argue vaccine proponents, it is best tackled by similar technology. The mRNA approach has been in the works for twenty years and was ready at the starting gate when the coronavirus erupted (probably from a laboratory in North Carolina or Wuhan, China). Here is one view, from a major university, on whether there have been side effects. It asserts that mRNA vaccines are a laser-like weapon that have caused — after injection into 170 million arms in the U.S. alone — amazingly few side effects thus far (we always look for long-term consequences, though RNA by definition does not enter the nucleus where DNA resides and rapidly vanishes). Any side effects are usually noted within weeks, it says, and are far less than what covid causes. Here is another viewpoint, from a strongly anti-vaccine alternative-health site that claims the opposite, warning of serious consequences. Weigh all sides.

Yes, on a daily basis, we get the e-mails claiming “thousands” have died from it, often from Evangelical sites, and the latest “Dr.” issuing dire warnings, these on dozens of blogs. We continue to consider these, and welcome them, though most we have seen already (and a while ago at that). Perhaps there is merit. Perhaps there is none. The jury remains out. You need to clear your mind and ask the Holy Spirit. For most likely the truth is this: no human, at this point, has the entire picture, and anyone who presents a video or article or blog post or e-mail blast pretending to — claiming to know, definitively, the entire panorama, on either side — is exercising pride and risking public harm.

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