Note—It was just getting started a year
ago today, but poets were already weighing in.
OK. I guess it’s time to address the elephant in the room—the Coronavirus pandemic. Everyone else has. In fact it is dominating the national consciousness unlike anything
since the days immediately after the 9/11
terrorist attacks.
I
won’t duplicate the common sense
precautions and recommendations that
flood our TV, newspapers, and social media. You can get that anywhere. Nor will I inundate you with a history of the global spread of the
disease or mind numbing statistics
and prognostications. Those are grim enough and you are probably seeing
infection spread maps in your dreams.
And I am not even going to rail against
Trump, his ignorance, vanity, criminally inept management, and
attempts to use the crisis as a cover for
tax breaks to wealthy cronies, attacks on Social
Security and Medicare, and xenophobic exploitation. Surely he has not only shot himself in the foot
but blown holes in the bottom of his sinking boat. I won’t wring my hands or finger point over panic
buying and hoarding. There will be enough shaming.
From
Friday the 13th through today, the Ides of March with all of its connotations of foretold doom, our lives
have been turned upside down. Much of the country is on lock down. Social
distancing is the euphemism of the day—a sad condition in a country that was already starved for human
interaction in the age of being chained
to our smart phones and devices. Individuals
and families are stressed by lost income—so many of us live from paycheck to paycheck—and by having to cope with unexpected home
child care. Even the most loving and well-adjusted of families might find enforced confinement with each other for days or weeks a harrowing experience.
My
own life and community have been affected—although
I have little to complain about
compared to those who have actually been exposed
to the virus and/or have fallen ill. Two major
projects that I have been working on for weeks have been suddenly postponed. Poets in Resistance II had to be scrapped at the last moment when the McHenry
County Department of Health declared an emergency and recommended the cancelations of all gatherings of 50
or more. That program will be difficult
to reschedule and we will have to
start nearly from scratch lining up poets and making other arrangements. The
Promise and Practice of Our Faith, a special worship service featuring exclusively the voices of Black Unitarian
Universalists was pushed back one week from today to March 23 and it will
be conducted without the Congregation present, to be shared with Zoom meeting technologies.
Indeed
the Tree of Life UU Congregation in McHenry, Illinois is closing the
building to all meetings and gatherings until further notice. That
includes the Social Justice Team meeting
scheduled for this coming Wednesday and to long-planned Murfin family gatherings for which we had rented the church.
Meanwhile,
because of my age—I turn 71 on St. Patrick’s Day and because I have an
irregular heart beat and shortness of breath—my wife Kathy has decided that I should be
held in close confinement. We are in intense and on-going negotiations about when I might be permitted to venture from the house. So far I may be permitted to walk a block and a half to cast my vote in the Illinois Primary on Tuesday as long as I pick a time of the day when turn-out is expected to be light.
But absolutely no results
watching parties or victory
celebrations.
Meanwhile
to help feed the spiritual need we
share these inspiring poems.
The
Rev. Lynn Ungar lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her wife, teenaged daughter, two dogs and two cats. She serves as the Minister for Lifespan Learning for the Church of the Larger Fellowship, an online Unitarian Universalist congregation. This poem when almost immediately viral and spread so quickly it was noted in an article in the Chicago Tribune.
Pandemic
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love—a
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
—Lynn Ungar
March 11, 2020
Brother Richard Hendrick is a Capuchin Franciscan priest-friar, living and working in Ireland He is the Guardian of Ards Friary in Donegal which includes a large residential retreat center, teaches Christian meditation and mindfulness, and works with the Sanctuary Spirituality Centre in inner city Dublin.
Lockdown
Yes there is fear.
Yes there is isolation.
Yes there is panic buying.
Yes there is sickness.
Yes there is even death.
But,
They say that in Wuhan after so
many years of noise
You can hear the birds again.
They say that after just a few
weeks of quiet
The sky is no longer thick with
fumes
But blue and grey and clear.
They say that in the streets of
Assisi
People are singing to each other
across the empty squares,
keeping their windows open
so that those who are alone
may hear the sounds of family
around them.
They say that a hotel in the
West of Ireland
Is offering free meals and
delivery to the housebound.
Today a young woman I know
is busy spreading fliers with
her number
through the neighbourhood
So that the elders may have
someone to call on.
Today Churches, Synagogues,
Mosques and Temples
are preparing to welcome
and shelter the homeless, the
sick, the weary
All over the world people are
slowing down and reflecting
All over the world people are
looking at their neighbours in a new way
All over the world people are
waking up to a new reality
To how big we really are.
To how little control we really
have.
To what really matters.
To Love.
So we pray and we remember that
Yes there is fear.
But there does not have to be
hate.
Yes there is isolation.
But there does not have to be
loneliness.
Yes there is panic buying.
But there does not have to be
meanness.
Yes there is sickness.
But there does not have to be
disease of the soul
Yes there is even death.
But there can always be a
rebirth of love.
Wake to the choices you make as
to how to live now.
Today, breathe.
Listen, behind the factory
noises of your panic
The birds are singing again
The sky is clearing,
Spring is coming,
And we are always encompassed by
Love.
Open the windows of your soul
And though you may not be able
to touch across the empty
square,
Sing.
—Richard Hendrick
March 13, 2020
Other
poets faced fear. The Rev. Theresa Novak is a retired
Unitarian Universalist minister who lives in San Rafael, California
with her wife and partner of 43 years.
She has written poetry since her teen years and blogs at Sermons,
Poetry, and Other Musings.
When Fear Comes
When fear comes knocking
I never know
If I should answer
Or hide somewhere inside.
Maybe it won’t know
That I am here.
Maybe it will go away
If I leave it standing
At the door.
But fear is just a
Messenger, a warning.
Not a harbinger
Of what must be.
Listen, Fear,
I hear you.
I’ll be as careful as I can
And I thank you
For your time.
Go away now.
I need courage more
Just now.
Send some over, please.
—Rev. Theresa Novak
March 11, 2020
Finally, here is a doleful piece by the Old Man.
Love in the Time
of a Plague
Have you
wondered what it would be like—
in an Egyptian mud hut when the
Angels of Death
did not passover your door?
When the calls of bring out your
dead
rang from overburdened carts on
London’s muddy lanes?
When wrapping your children in the
Small Pox blankets
so kindly given to you by the
invaders of your country?
When Yellow Fever seemed to rise in
the swamp air
or Typhoid and Cholera did their
mysterious work?
When
Doughboy camps, refugee havens, and troopships
brought death dwarfing the gore of
the trenches?
When ordinary summer colds sent
children in the thousands
into iron lungs on crowded wards?
When the unwanted and despised were
reaped by God’s wrath
and rest stood aside until the
innocent were touched?
Now we know, or
imagine we do, as Cassandras cry alarm
and we retreat into isolation.
That fear and
isolation may be more lethal than an alien virus
sapping our lonely souls even if our
bodies are spared.
Now comes the
time of love in the age of a plague—
how do we reach out to caress a face
we cannot touch?
—Patrick Murfin
March 15, 2020
