Baby Steps

Venturing out during quarantine.

Needless to say, I don't believe a word out of T-rumps mouth.

Covid 19 is NOT going to magically 'disappear';

nor do I accept that we just "have to learn  to live with it".

At my age and physical condition,

that translates to dying with it.

I also, however, don't want to become agrophobic,

living in fear and never leaving the house.

It's all about balance; am I right?

I took the first masked steps beyond my immediate neighborhood yesterday;

driving with a friend (also masked) into the country 

to walk around the paths of a sculpture park an hour away.

SLU's Lay Center for Education and the Arts

in Louisiana, MO

was precisely the break from 'routine' that we were hoping for.

 Despite the clear invitation, neither of us wanted to argue with him.

 

These wings were moving to fast to catch - but I tried.

 

 The usual heat and humidity of summer in MO, 

but we found spots of shade and a lovely breeze coming off the lake

At most, we saw 4-5 other people, 

all wearing masks as we passed.

Not gonna lie;

the trails were short but more exercise than I've had for a while.

I was tired by the time we got back in the car.

My "Camino' self mourns my current state,

but, it is what it is and life goes on;

at least I hope so - for a bit longer.

Scenes from life during a pandemic

It would be easy to spew about:

the complete abdication of responsibility 

by an Administration in response, 

or lack thereof, 

to a contagious disease that is decimating vulnerable populations 

or how that governmental mismanagement combined with 

the malignant individualism of science deniers 

have imperiled both our economy and, literally, thousands of lives

OR

the spotlight being focused, once again, on our city,

for the exaggerated fear response of people of privilege,

both lawyers,

aiming loaded guns at protesters 

who had the temerity 

to walk down their 'private' street on the way to the Mayors house 

in an adjoining enclave.

Talk about privilege being piled on to privilege.

But, lest you think they were racist. they explained, 

through their attorney,

they were concerned about the white terrorists!

Of course they were.

(insert snicker here)

OR

how infuriating it is as the parent of a son in the military

to have a Commander in Chief who doesn't bother to read, 

care about or formulate a response to

reports that his pals in the homeland,

Mother Russia,

are paying bounties to the Taliban 

for the scalps of America soldiers.

Seriously, 

how can there be ANY person drawing breath 

who can't see that Putin has some weird shit on #45

which is hanging over his orange buffoon head

like the sword of Damocles ? 

But no, I won't go there -

because in the grand scheme of things,

that doesn't match up to what else is going on.

Things are blooming

Birthdays are being celebrated

Beauty, expressed through the arts,

both old and new, 

are there for inspiration

Its a Midwest summer 

and everyone is looking for ways to stay cool

Even Saharan sandstorms contain their own beauty.

 

This recently acquired vintage Mexican votive painting serves as a powerful reminder for me.

Even as it seems the world around us is on fire,

and it does, 

and it is,

we can recognize the divine presence in the midst of it all -

and be grateful for what we DO have,

TODAY.

Knowing that there are no guarantees of what tomorrow holds.

Stay safe, and grateful, my friends.

Where I am

Act Three

Act One and Act Two are through

Act Three is all that's left.

My costume is less grand

My lines are less than I'm used to.

And yet, the stage is set.

The audience, such as it is, remains.

I'll give my best

I'll play the lesser part

I don't expect a curtain call.
 I expect ... a broken heart

Wording matters

Break out the soapbox, I'm climbing on.

Let me say it as loudly as I possibly can - 

and hope my words aren't discounted by my white privilege -

Black Lives Matter;

being black 

while living, 

driving, 

bird watching, 

BBQing, 

doing yard work

walking

playing

inhabiting public space

or jogging

is not a crime and shouldn't result in death,

EVER.

There HAVE to be reforms in our policing procedures and judicial systems 

to address the systemic inequities inherent at their very core.

But every time I hear the phrase "Defund the police",

it makes me want to scream.

I have NO problem with redirecting funding  

away from the militarization of police forces across the country

and toward more social services:

housing resources,

mental health services, ie. outpatient counseling and residential options, 

substance abuse treatment programs,

in home parenting skills, 

domestic violence/child abuse prevention services,

job training and re-training, 

at all levels and for all ages,

better schools, 

more technology for more people ...

etc. etc. etc.

Our jails have become de facto psych hospitals;

our police forces are asked to deal with all the social ills

that local governments and national politicians refuse to address 

and pay for.

Ironically, I've been told that all of the above is exactly 

what 'Defund the police' means;

and, if true, then its advocates need to find a better,
less provocative phrase to encapsulate their message.

Prior to entering retirement 6 weeks ago,

I worked with police nearly every day -

both street officers and Detectives.

I think its the height of naivete 

to think our society could ever abolish a police force and, 

when you cry for "Defunding the police" that, in my mind, 

is exactly what you're advocating. 

Maybe your privilege and inexperience has protected you

from being in the same room with someone

capable of raping, to death, a 4 months old baby;

or someone who shows no remorse about inflicting life threatening head injuries 

and multiple broken bones to a toddler 

who interrupted their video game.

Maybe you've never seen a mother willing to pimp out her 9 year old daughter 

to multiple strangers

for a days worth of drugs.

I've seen it all -and so much more in 35+ years - on the front line.

Trust me when I say 

there are certain situations

in which social services will NOT be the answer;

certain people you WILL want off the streets;

you WILL want the police to investigate 

and you WILL want the judicial system to hold them accountable. 

As long as our country tolerates malignant individualism,

and human beings operate with free will,

there will be people who refuse services;

you can't make someone want to get better.

Yes, by all means, lets get additional services in place 

to hopefully mitigate the depth of pathology 

that sets in from years of ignoring problems,

but lets at least go in with our eyes open.

 Lets stop kidding ourselves
that a concept with an inaccurate and misleading slogan
is going to fix

the ills that are entrenched in our country.

The light dawns

Always we hope

someone else has the answer,

some other place will be better,

some other time it will turn out.

This is it.

no one else has the answer.

no other place will be better.

and it has already turned out.

At the center of your being

you have the answer;

you know who you are

and you know what you want.

There is no need 

to run outside 

for better seeing.

Nor to peer from a window.

Rather abide at the center of your being;

for the more you leave it,

the less you learn.

Search your heart

and see 

the way to do

is to be.

The speed of life

Let me state categorically that I can't keep up.

Maybe its because I'm old;

maybe its because I thought retirement would mean hours of unscheduled time, 

accountable to no one but myself, 

whiling away the hours of a day 

with my whim as the sole determinate of my time.

Maybe the warranty on the executive decision making part of my brain

finally died after being overdosed with adrenaline for decades 

and it's finally sunk into the comfort of an overstuffed sofa

watching reruns of Law and Order.

Whatever the reason,

I'm officially struggling with the speed with which life is moving theses days.

Between Zooming for movie club, Vestry, church meetings, 

abuse review board, book discussions

plus telephone calls to folks around the country

both for business and pleasure,

my days are remarkably full.

I never had to keep a calendar of my scheduled calls before

and I'm not sure I want to now.

There's an expectation of immediacy that I find troubling;

everyone working from home at their computers,

 or with cell phone in hand,

thinking that because they had a thought or question 

which they shared with you,

it will be equally as important to you and you'll respond within seconds, 

if not minutes.

Somebody tell them, in case they haven't figured it out,

that ain't happenin' with me.

Then there's the 'real world';

all the 'stuff' that's happening around the country 

as we slide deeper into a dictatorship;

one in which human rights and decency are sacrificed

on the altar of power and photo ops.

When I see news that haunts me,

about which I ruminate

in the privacy of my garden while ripping out weeds, 

ie white 'Karen' calling the police on a black man 

whom she perceived as being a 'threat' to her 

while he's peacefully bird-watching, 

asking her to stop breaking the law and leash her damn dog

(the expression of anger is mine, not his; he was remarkably cool);

just when I think I have crafted a message 

which speaks to the Superpower white females have -

even if they're not aware of it -

that of being responded to and believed -

the very next day, 

some new atrocity pushes that story right off the front page

and assaults us with more horror

ie a police officer in Minneapolis, a TRAINING OFFICER,

kneeling on a mans jugular for almost 9 minutes,

killing him in real time before our eyes;

as he cries out for his Mom and asks for mercy.

There are SO many levels of wrongness in this scenario, 

its hard to narrow down which ones to focus on.

This officer KNEW this victim - and not because he'd arrested him before -

but because they worked together at a local bar.

Jesus, how do you remove yourself so far from the humanity of another person 

that you KNOW

that you're still able to squash him under your knee

with absolutely NO regard?

On my worst days at the office, I'm guilty of saying I could throttle a co-worker;

no doubt, co-workers are capable of pissing you off;

but, seriously?

And those cops standing around watching it happen?

Two of them were on their 4th day on the job.

Captain POS was their Commanding officer.

I'm not implying they shouldn't be held accountable.

I just wonder how many of us, 

after realizing our career goal, 

going through all that's involved in the police academy

and finally being 'on the streets',

would have the courage to openly and directly confront their Superior,

let alone get into a physical confrontation with him 

which is what it would have taken for him to be stopped;

knowing most certainly their actions would lead to their career being ended before it began.

 Either way, they were screwed;

screwed but George Floyd might still be alive.

That's a huge difference.

Too many problems for me to fix;

going back outside to plant sunflowers, zinnias and lavender;

Going outside to, in my own small way, plant beauty and hope.

Malignant Individualism

There was a time when we were united;

if not in a world view

than at least in a philosophy of what this country stood for.

I'm not suggesting that we were all in agreement with the means or motives

but, if not in the same corner, 

we were at least on the same page.

There was such a thing as the common good,

the recognition that we rose and fell together;

the belief that the overarching progress of this country

depended on all of us working toward the good of the whole.

The erosion of that belief has been accelerated in the last 3 years,

faster than the spread of Covid 19. 

Individuals now seem incapable of looking beyond self interest,

incapable of doing anything voluntarily 

which would help anyone other than themselves.

And, when that behavior is given voice every day by 'the leader',

when his selfishness and narcissism are on display and normalized,

it's no wonder its become every person for him/herself.

And the folks protesting the loudest,

the ones with the huge guns and small brains taking over state capitals,

are, by and large,

the one demographic that has NEVER known oppression;

the ones confusing inconvenience with being deprived of their rights.

Wearing a mask = loss of individual freedom?

Seriously?

Get a grip.

This toxic brew of

malignant individualism,

institutionalized racism, 

consumer fetishism

and selfishness

is a poison in the American system -

and we tolerate it at our peril.

Love in the midst of pandemic

Somewhere each day
we have to fall in love with someone, something, 

some moment, event, phrase. 

Somehow each day we must allow the softening of the heart. 

Otherwise our hearts will move inevitably toward hardness. 

We will move toward cynicism, bitterness, fear and despair. 

That's where most of the world is trapped and doesn't even know it. 

The world's been in love with death so long that it calls death life. 

It tries to conjure up life by making itself falsely excited, 

by creating parties where there's no reason to celebrate.... 

Yet the only way to experience joy is to give yourself to reality. 

Joy comes after you go that extra mile and offer yourself first-thing every day.

Ask the Lord to give you the grace to fall in love. 

Then you'll see rightly because only when we are in love 

do we understand.

Richard Rohr 

There are moments in every day
even during quarantine
when we can fall in love.

These are just a few of the moments in mine today.

I'm committed to finding something to love every day.
Won't you join me?

In order of appearance:
Grandson in his happy place, the Jungle
a light box honoring summer
a junk store
communicating with the neighbors while holy distancing 
a spring bouquet from the garden
the abundance of small things
Imaginations Cathedral, a painting from my oldest son. 

What would be on your list? 

Quaratine thoughts

Amid the fear, the confusion, 

the isolation, the loss of routine
and the quietness of formerly occupied spaces, 

what I can't get over is the constant realization 

that we have never been more together. 

All of us,

across the entire world.

At random moments during these long days of quarantine, 

I stop and think of people I know,

people I used to know,

famous people I've never met who don't know I exist,

people I know living in other countries,

those who live across oceans

or just across state lines.

We're all living modified versions of the same reality.

We're absorbing the same anxieties.

We're facing the same hurdles and asking similar questions.

Never in my lifetime has this happened before.

Nothing even close.

Our present reality doesn't care what religion we practice,

or how much money we have (or don't have).

It doesn't care about our politics, 

education, orientation, age, zip-code or time zone.

It's no respecter of schedules, deadlines or events.

We are all in it together

and we are all going to lose something.

(Please God, let our loss be a something 

and not a someone).

Ironically, at a time when we've never been more closed off from the world,

we've also never been more connected.

If there was ever any doubt that we belong to each other,

right now is when it shatters.

The Lakota call it Mitakuye oyasin,

we are all related;
and the truth of it brings me up short
and makes me catch my breath.

Things are hard and hearts are breaking,

but I keep looking up at the sky,

knowing you're doing the same.

I'll feel you out there, 

and yet somehow right here,
the same as me,

and it will help.

It already does.

A phone call from my son

I would have sworn I had gotten the message by now.

I didn’t think the universe would need to keep reminding me that I’m not in control.

Apparently God thought I needed another reminder.

I used to think it was hard being the single parent of two young boys.

I’m not sure why I used the past tense;

it WAS hard being the single parent of two young boys.

What I didn’t fully appreciate and couldn’t fully comprehend until I got here 

is how hard it can be being the single parent of two adult men - 

to see them struggle with life choices; 

those that occur randomly through forces over which they have no control

 and those that are the natural consequences of choices they’ve made.

At least when they were young there was the illusion of control; 

the feeling however delusional 

that I could modify circumstances to mitigate the harm.

With fully functioning and independent adults, however, 

after I’ve offered my thoughts and observations - IF asked, 

there’s nothing to do but step back and watch it unfold.

THAT, my friends is infinitely harder.

I found a poem today after a phone call from my son and it made me catch my breath.

Life is amazing. And then its awful

And then its amazing again

And in between the amazing

and the awful, it’s ordinary

and mundane and routine.

Breathe in the amazing,

hold on through the awful,

and relax and exhale

during the ordinary.

That's just living, heartbreaking,

soul-healing, amazing

awful, ordinary life.

And it's breathtakingly beautiful.

LR Knost.

I’m here, holding on-

waiting for the ordinary and the amazing 

to begin again.

Retirement, Take Two

I've been wrestling.

Conjures up images, doesn't it? 

No, my current wrestling has been harder.

As might have been predicted, 

my furlough during the global pandemic has proven to be a giant 'reset' button.

 I'm on my third week at home,
living with the latest reality check from the universe
that my time is finite.

If you're old (I am), immuno-compromised (also check)

and you're lucky enough to survive (so far, so good),

it forces you to think of everything you still want to do
with your allotted time on this earth.

Turns out my list is rather short:
 
1) Spend more time with children, grandchild, extended family and friends.

2) Read;
finally get to the stacks of books that have been waiting patiently

 - in some cases, for years.

3) Travel.
While I think international trips are off the table now, for a variety of reasons,

taking a national road trip with my dog is a distinct possibility.

I love long distance driving;
I find it meditative and relaxing,
at least when done during daylight hours.
My time of driving straight through to a destination at night is over.

Two particularly appealing options, at the moment, are driving to every National Park

 and/or

a tour of every 'Springfield' in the country

(no, I'm not a Simpsons fan);

it's just that the quixotic and whimsical aspect of that road trip appeals to me.

Should I get truly crazy,

I could always overlay the maps on top each other.

4) Learn to crochet.

I still haven't and I still want to.

5) Take more photos.

6) Be a better steward of my garden.
The 'good bones' it had in a previous reincarnation have all but disappeared
but, with time and care, it could be marginally presentable again.
(With age, you set smaller goals;
the garden resuming its previous splendor isn't on the table.)

Note to self: be sure to leave untamed areas where my grandson
can continue to dig for dinosaur bones and 'go on treasure hunts' in the wild.

You'll notice, as I did, that working at the hospital
is nowhere on the list.

The first time I retired, 

I knew beyond doubt that it was the right thing to do
and the right time to do it.
(see here if you're not aware of the story)

 I guess, I'm just used to the dramatic.
I mean, seriously, I heard directly from God the first time around;
it doesn't get more intense than that.

When I was complaining to a friend
 that I didn't have the blinding clarity this time,
he replied,"God, you're high maintenance.
How many mountaintop experiences do you think one person gets?
Besides, you don't think a global pandemic that threatens your very existence
is enough of a burning bush to warrant your attention"?

Point taken.

And, in actuality, I don't need a burning bush.

When this week ends,
so does this phase of my working life.

The end of my career is not without sadness;
it's not without trepidation and some anxiety -
yet none of those feelings
 means it isn't the right thing to do
and
the right time to do it.

Retirement 2.0

The future

A child stood on her seat in a restaurant,
holding the railing of the chair back,
as though to address a courtroom,

“Nobody knows what’s going to happen next.”

Then she turned, sliding back down to her food,
as relieved and proud to say the truth,
as we were to hear it.

Coleman Barks

Sea Glass

I want to age like sea glass.

Smoothed by the tides

but not broken.

I want my hard edges to soften.

I want to ride the waves

and go with the flow.

I want to catch a wave and let it carry me

to where I belong.

I want to be picked up 

and held gently by

those who delight in my well earned patina and

and appreciate the changes I went

through to achieve that beauty.

I want to enjoy the journey 

and always remember that if

you give the ocean, 

or life, 

something breakable, 

it will turn into

something beautiful.

I want to age like sea glass