I checked the COVID numbers at the New York Times and saw that on Wednesday, October 28, there were 81,457 new COVID cases reported in the United States.
I made a Facebook post with the following statement:
“81,457 new cases yesterday.”
Then after pushing ‘post,’ I immediately edited it.
“81,457 newly diagnosed people yesterday.”
It’s always people, families, and communities.
Then on Thursday, we hit another record.
“Approximately 86,000 newly diagnosed people.”
The numbers have names.
If you’ve been following my blog for the last few weeks, you’ll know that I’ve been on a personal trek. Bit by bit, I’ve been walking the Border to Border Trail, otherwise known as the B2B in Washtenaw County, Michigan. The whole journey is 70 miles long. Yesterday, after 14 days of walking a portion each day, I hit a milestone and finished the longest segment which runs from Ypsilanti through Ann Arbor. Now I’m going to start walking to Dexter, and then I’ll finish the last portion.
I’ve been thinking about how some people travel to Spain or France to walk a pilgrimage, perhaps most famously El Camino de Santiago. But this gem is right here where I live. I’ve seen beautiful sites, discovered segments previously unknown to me, and taken some of the most wonderful photography. I’ve enjoyed sharing the images.
This is my pilgrimage in place. I am paying attention to the scenery around me and to my internal landscape of feelings, hopes, and daydreams.
This has been a lovely experience. Plants… bridges… scenes of colorful leaves…
I was in a planning meeting, and we were gathered together on Zoom (because, of course). As a team, we’re pretty casual with each other, because we’re friends as much as we’re leaders.
Because we’re leaders, we were planning details for a big event on Zoom (because, of course). And in the midst of the meeting, someone swiveled their chair around and moved their laptop. That’s when we saw a teddy bear on a couch in the corner of their room. “Oh, that’s [Bear’s Name — forgive me, I forgot this being’s name].”
Right then, in a moment of great professionalism, I stood up and said, “I’m wearing unicorn slippers!” and showed them off to everyone. I was dressed up for the meeting, except for my mythical footwear, purposefully out of view on Zoom (because, of course). Then suddenly, every single person spontaneously retrieved a stuffed animal nearby them in their respective houses, and we showed them all off.
I’m nearly 40, and I was one of the youngest people in the room.
And I loved this.
When so much in our world is outside of our control, we might find ourselves saying, “Well, I guess this is all I can do…”
We might not feel a full range of choices. In fact, we might feel remarkably far removed from choices. Instead, we may think of one thing or a couple tiny things, and resign ourselves with, “Well, I guess this is all I can do…”
We can easily get into this mindspace when so much is beyond our control.
But during beyond-our-control-situations, maybe that one thing we can do is what we can really do. We can let it be enough. We can allow it to make space for other possibilities. We can bring it to other people and connect it (and ourselves) to trusted loved ones and new relationships.
Sometimes, “all I guess I can do” is what we can really do.
That’s okay, and even good.
This story about my favorite groundhog ended up in my sermon yesterday. So I thought I’d share this little piece again. Enjoy!
Over the years, I’ve had many animal neighbors in the backyard, including a number of groundhogs. One of my favorites was a groundhog named Son of Spinach (at least, that was his name to me). Sadly, he died last year. He was quite a character.
He didn’t show up every day, but he had a den nearby, so from time to time, he would show up in the backyard. And to say something both true and alliterative, Son of Spinach was so overly skittish. At the smallest noise, he would run away to hide, sometimes under the deck. This quality felt like an endearing, funny, sad combo.
Occasionally in the mornings, Son of Spinach would feast on the backyard grass quite out-in-the-open. And if I made the slightest sound, like unlocking the screen door, he ran for cover under the deck. I found myself wondering, how long will he stay down there? How much recoup time is necessary for the popping sound of a lock? How long will it be before he feels safe again?
Then, sometimes, I’d think of us – that is, we humans. We hide and recoup too. Sometimes, we need alone time or sustained opportunities for self and community care.
But other times, we just doubt ourselves.
When it comes to the second, I hope we know there’s a whole out-in-the-open living opportunity for us.
On August 7, a family held a wedding in the Millinocket-area of Maine, taking few if any precautions concerning COVID. As a result, 270 people contracted the virus.
And here’s the main thing I want to point out:
Because of these choices, 8 people died, and *none of them attended the wedding.*
Our choices impact other people’s outcomes — the quality of life that people are having and even the outcome of living itself. When we make risky choices while having the ability to choose otherwise (some don’t have that ability, and that upsets me too, but many of us do) we are denying people the liberty we say we’re trying to uphold. Liberty involves being able to make your own choices to live, correct?
Approximately 224,000 people have died from COVID, and yesterday in the U.S., we had the highest number of daily contracted cases that we’ve had since this virus started moving through our population.
Hospitals in Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Wisconsin are filling up beyond capacity. One of the members of my family is a physician in Colorado, and that hospital reached total capacity two days ago. And when people came in for acute care — for COVID or for something else — there was nowhere to send people because all the neighboring hospitals were filling too.
COVID is hard to control totally, yes, but the spread of this virus did not have to be and still does not have to be this broad and extensive. 224,000 people is a high number… But people are more than numbers. This is another matter entirely when this is about your Grandmother, or your Son, or your Best Friend.
And though 224,000 is a high number of lives lost, an even larger number of people are dealing with Long-Covid — sickness that is lasting months and seems to be causing long-term damage to respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological systems.
And as COVID runs through our population, the economy is stalled and more people are losing jobs. Because healthcare is often tied to employment, people’s healthcare is now at risk during a pandemic.
No matter how deeply we’re impacted personally, all our lives are disrupted. The longer we refuse to think collectively, the longer this persists with all its damage…
If we care about liberty, we have to care about the liberty of people beyond ourselves.
Earlier this week, I missed a turn, so I began to drive back to where I came from.
At the precise moment I entered a roundabout and circled in the other direction, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” started playing at the radio, and it was super satisfying.
Some questions for reflection:
— Do you have a voting plan?
— Do you have a plan for how you will act, mobilize, and care for neighbors if this election is contested? and/or if there is election interference of some kind, or disinformation, throwing the results into dispute?
I know that people are carrying a lot of anxiety around the next couple of weeks. Support for us all in this.
It’s helpful, I think, to make some plans ahead of time for these questions, so that we are empowered, organized, and connected to each other (even if socially distanced right now) in care and protection.
Also, we can’t individually do all the things that will be needed, so…
Where is your deepest “yes,” deepest help, or deepest contribution?
What’s your best role?
What are you best at doing?
What can you best offer?
What can you best provide?
What resources do you have?
What connections do you have to other people?
How do you connect these with what other people are doing and building?
Anne Lamotte wrote a book entitled, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. The title is pretty explanatory: We’re constantly expressing these three movements of thought — need, gratitude, and wonder. Whether we choose to address them to a spiritual source or just think and feel them inwardly, these three expressions are foundational to our lives.
Yesterday, as I continued my daily hike on the B2B trail, I let my thoughts and feelings move wherever they needed to go. I felt delight, grief, curiosity, and fatigue at different points on that walk.
I realized that I too was constantly in a prayerful state of,
Help,
Thanks,
Wow.
Maybe it’s helpful to become even more conscious of feeling, thinking, and expressing these. They connect us with ourselves too.
Each of us is unique and particular, distinct and differentiated,
yes
(and these are great gifts)
But in every moment,
each person is a We.
Every single one of us is a Collective —
we are Plural
not only in a myriad of
thoughts,
feelings,
memories, and
impulses,
each as plentiful and contradictory as the next —
but also
We represent internalized others.
We are a nexus of relationships, embodied.
Who is always rooted in Whose.
Whose —
not possession or ownership.
not fate or determinism.
Whose —
belonging,
collective calling,
sacred possibility.
Sacred actuality.
We only need to awaken to it.
Smuggling Grace 