Quarantine

Good afternoon.
   It's odd how things you daydream about sometimes come to pass, in ways you never could have expected.  During the past few years, I've actually thought that being under house arrest in my own home wouldn't be such a bad thing, if it ever came to it.  I have lots of books, art supplies, musical instruments, and a home on a Great Lake with beautiful scenery, wildlife, and flora.  I could be quite happy here!
   And then came the Quarantine.  COVID19  descended upon New York State like a jet falling from the sky:  swiftly, completely unexpected, devastating, leaving a pile of rubble and death in its wake.  We've been under state-wide quarantine for four weeks now.  In my last post, I shared some of my homegrown statistics, gathered from various official sources, of Coronavirus cases and deaths from my county, state, NYC, country, and globally.  As I look back at where my charts stopped, I am sorry to say that those data have increased exponentially at a truly terrifying rate.  As of this afternoon, here are my most recent stats:

Global Cases:                      1,978,769   Deaths:  125,196

US Cases:                                609,614  Deaths:  25,794

NY (State) Cases:                    202,208  Deaths:  10,834

New York City Cases:             110,465  Deaths:     7690

Monroe County (NY) Cases:         850  Deaths:        56

   If you refer back to my previous post, this is a huge increase.  Huge.

   Given these grim statistics, how does one cope with the enormous losses of life, jobs, food security, housing, and other issues of basic daily living?  I read a heart-breaking article this morning about the impossibility of maintaining the 6' "social distancing" space for people who share a house with many other residents.  If you're sleeping on someone else's floor with your children, there's no social distancing.  If you work two or three jobs to put food on the table and that goes away, there's no food on the table.
   And we're supposedly one of the richest nations in the world.
   Clearly, that only means, "For the rich.  For the middle class.  For the privileged."
   The human cost of this pandemic is staggering, and plays up the obvious discrepancies between the haves and the have-nots.  Ironically,  this pandemic is exploding in the prisons, detention centers, homeless shelters, and other places where America warehouses its undesirables.  And this could be the downfall of this nation:  By crowding human beings into tight spaces and denying them healthcare and adequate living arrangements, we could be skyrocketing the casualties to a point of no return.  Consider this:  Another recent article points out that the rat population world-wide is increasing, and becoming much more aggressive, due to the lack of food from restaurants and other public food sources.  Not a pretty picture!  The rats are beginning to eat their own.  And wasn't the Bubonic Plague spread, in part, through rats?
   Many people are having trouble with anxiety, depression, and insomnia during this crisis.  It's little wonder, with the information I'm sharing here.  So how do we cope with quarantine in a time of not only a health crisis in this country, but also a crisis of leadership?
   I focus on the little things.  Yes, I'm lucky - I live surrounded by water and woodlands.   I can take walks fairly free from crowds, although I do wear a mask.  I can see the beauty of spring unfold around me.  It's this that I choose to focus on, when I'm not watching multiple news channels, doing daily statistical research, and listening with incredulity to the ravings of our political "leaders."
   This afternoon I saw cherry blossoms, magnolia buds, waterfowl, and found a complete surprise:  a rustic chair built into a park, with a well-loved copy of "Anne of Green Gables" on the seat.
   There is beauty in the wreckage of our lives.
   If only we can take a mindful moment to walk away from the sorrow, the pain, the worry, and engage in our senses...
    What did I see today?      Cherry blossoms.
    What did I hear today?    Spring birdsong.
    What did I smell today?  Fresh earth, moist from recent rains.
    What did I touch today?  Pine needles.
    What did I taste today?   Half a bagel, with a shmeer.
    My husband and I often debrief our day by considering the senses, and we add another, final one:  How did I experience space today?  Walking in a forest.
     There is beauty to be found in everyday things.  It can help to heal the soul.
     For the majority of the world's population that struggles for the basics of survival, it is time to consider leveling the playing field.  What can we do to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, heal the sick? I may need to look beyond the beauty of my surroundings, and find ways to ease the sufferings of others.  What can I do?  How can I help? These are questions that I struggle with these days.  And while we are under Quarantine, there's plenty of time to think.

Waiting for the Light

   It's been over four months since I've posted in this blog.  I can feel the turning of the seasons; when last I wrote, it was high Summer.  Now, we're nearing the end of Autumn, beginning the descent into Winter which coincides nicely with the concept of Advent.
   I've had time to begin to more fully synthesize the unknowable concept of death.  I find myself leaning toward meditations on seeking light, on finding life in the stark landscape of early Winter.  Advent has always been a very sacred time of year for me.  This year, our priest has asked those of us in our small house congregation to consider three reflection questions for each Sunday's lectionary readings.  We've done this in the past, but this year he wants us to prepare responses to the three questions, and be prepared to discuss them the next Sunday.
   There is no grief for me in this process, and if there is loss, it is of the sadness and darkness that I have felt in previous years as the light wanes and the long, cold nights of December descend.  I'd like to share the three questions for Advent One here, as well as my responses.

   Advent One, 2017

1.               For what are you on the watch this Advent?

2.              How are you being enriched in every way this Advent?

3.              How might you need to be roused in order to cling more tightly to God?

   Advent is perhaps my favorite season of the church year.  So many personal events have happened during its long, dark nights and short, cold days…My first marriage (1975), my initial move to New York (1978), and my mother’s death (2014) all occurred on December 7^th, Pearl Harbor Day.  I was born on December 22^nd, the coldest and shortest day of the year in 1955.   I have always loved being born on the Solstice.  Sharp, bright pinpoints of light in the thick December night skies are a source of wonder and comfort for me.  In spite of the cold and the dark of Advent, I find in it a great deal of comfort, and more than a little joy.  I am a person of the shadows, and have always been on the edge, on the outside looking in.  I can place myself in the context of the Arab refugee family who could only find a humble stable, or cave, in which to give birth.  When pregnant with my first child, my first husband and I lived in a modest apartment in a very poor section of Cincinnati.  To get to my charity hospital pre-natal care appointments, I rode two city busses across town and spent several hours sitting on a folding chair in the basement corridor of Children’s Hospital.  I was a child myself, preparing to give birth.  I certainly can relate to Mary sitting on a donkey, riding over the harsh desert roads and finding someplace, any place safe to have her baby.  In fact, it was during Advent that I began lighting the Advent candles in 1975, while awaiting the birth of my own child.  It’s now been 42 years that the Advent candles have been lit in my household, although the children grew up and left, and husband number one departed, to be followed by husband number two.  Both were watchmen with me, waiting for a sign, waiting for the Word from above, guidance for the journey ahead…

   I am still on the watch for a sign from God, a word, a call…to what service?  That I do not yet know.  But I know that a fire burns within me to do more, to step out in faith and offer my life up in service.  Where am I going?  I am watching for a sign.  Perhaps I’ll be led by a star, shining in the East…

   I am being enriched this Advent by interacting with the aging, the aged…acquaintances, friends and relatives who are struggling with some form of cognitive impairment as their brains age and their arteries harden.  This is terrifying, yet enriching as I watch them and those who are their caregivers find new ways of relating.  Time becomes more elastic for the aged, who begin to pass more easily from past to present to future.  My work with the Hospice residents is also a very enriching experience…I always come away from a work shift feeling honored to have had the chance to sit quietly with the dying, to listen to them, to pray with them, to hear their stories, and to enter – however briefly – that space of waiting – like the hushed darkness of Advent – for the next life.

   In terms of being roused in order to cling more tightly to God – well, sometimes I feel that God uses me as a rabble-rouser, stirring up uncomfortable ideas and questions during Mass and in conversations… like bringing up the over-abundance of our Thanksgiving feasts juxtaposed with the huge eyes of the starving children of Yemen, or mentioning the uncomfortable (inconvenient?) truth that our Native American sisters and brothers have quite another context for the event that began the first Thanksgiving.  I think I rouse myself with these queries, and I certainly need to cling more tightly to God.  It’s a big, scary world out there, full of darkness and light, and I am but a small, aging human who cannot begin to stand up to its challenges without the grace of God.  I believe that I am being roused by the fire burning within me that constantly prods me, saying, “You could be doing more…” And so I look to the heavens, and listen deeply.  And begin to follow that star.