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By Polly Price
This article appeared originally on plaguesinthenation.com.
Well, it’s official. A presidential administration that left US citizens to sink or swim when facing the worst pandemic in a century has finally admitted what we already knew. It has given up. Saying the quiet part out loud, White House Chief-of-Staff Meadows acknowledged the coronavirus task force no longer even pretends to address the spread of the virus. But this is no surprise to anyone paying attention. This presidential administration was never interested in using the full power, resources, and authority of the federal government to combat COVID-19. And shamefully, it shows.
Chance brought us the unhappy coincidence of a pandemic and an election year for a first-term sitting president. A president who speaks and acts as though the coronavirus pandemic was a plot by Democrats to deny him a second term, so he denies its existence, spreads falsehoods, and divides the country. A president who takes no responsibility for COVID entering our shores, the failure to contain it, or the preventable deaths that have occurred and will continue in frightening numbers this fall and winter. A president who calls medical experts in his administration “idiots” and the CDC—the world’s premier disease-fighting agency—part of the “deep state.” A president who left states to deal with basically everything and then undermined their efforts constantly, whether by calling for militia to “liberate” states from public health measures put in place to save lives, or by ridiculing face masks, which, after all, are a proven measure to help limit spread, allowing businesses and schools to remain open. Even though his own administration’s experts agree that mask wearing on a wider basis could save hundreds of thousands of lives.
All the while, the United States continues to lead the world in the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths, with numbers currently hurtling toward new records. How can it possibly be that the wealthiest nation on earth, with medical expertise and institutions the envy of the world, has responded very much like a second-rate, if not a third-world country?
Under the cover of a stingy, warped view of “federalism,” it’s every state and locality for itself. Territories, states, cities, tribes, hospital systems, and healthcare facilities all compete against each other for critical medical supplies, adequate testing, and other resources. Long-term care facilities are still unable to acquire adequate PPE, let alone adequate, affordable testing. The current administration has left the nation’s defense completely up to the States while at the same time undermining public health measures its own task force deemed essential. All while the federal government sits on enormous resources and capabilities yet to be tapped.
It need not have been this way. If President Trump were to be elected to a second term, would he work harder to save lives, no longer focusing on his reelection but instead concerned about his legacy? Or might he at least stay out of the way and let the medical experts at the world’s premier health agencies guide us, without undermining every effort?
Whoever is the occupant of the Oval Office come January still has time to turn it around. A do-over is possible. Here is a short guide to immediate steps the new administration should take.
It is not too late for the federal government to mobilize for an aggressive fight against COVID-19. Take these steps.
A pandemic virus spreading as easily as COVID would always be difficult to contain, as the experience of other nations shows. Germany and France, for example, have returned to limited shutdowns in the face of a COVID resurgence. Step one for the next administration: study how other nations combat COVID-19, especially those that have been relatively successful and continue to learn. This is a pandemic, after all, and the US is not leading the way out.
There is no shortage of policy prescriptions for steps we must take. Fifty leading legal experts recently offered recommendations on how federal, state, and local leaders can better respond to COVID-19. Their proposals include: how to strengthen executive leadership for a stronger emergency response; expand access to public health; health care and telehealth; and fortify protections for workers.
My top three priorities for the next administration? Read about them here. There is so much that could yet be done, rather than just give up.
Congress is not off the hook either. In past public health emergencies, most recently Zika and Ebola, Congress held numerous oversight hearings to ask whether our federal health agencies were responding appropriately and had the resources they needed. What has the US Senate done in this pandemic? Oversight hearings in the Senate have focused on the so-called Russia “hoax” from four years ago. As if getting to the bottom of that will save lives now. The Senate committee overseeing the Department of Homeland Security has spent its time assessing discredited Russian propaganda funneled through presidential intermediaries in an apparent attempt to relitigate the prior election, or to find nonexistent crimes to make the president look better in guess what—an election year. These are not lethal threats to the American public like COVID is. If protecting Americans during a pandemic is not in the purview of Homeland Security, what is? And shouldn’t the Senate be interested in how DHS is responding?
When we think about how we can be better prepared next time—and there will be a next time, perhaps with even more lethality—what needs to change? No doubt better coordination is possible among our disease-fighting agencies and medical institutions (as President Obama’s Ebola czar proved). Harnessing the power of federal agencies to all row in the same direction requires constant effort, not the one-time appointment of a task force that soon gives up to go out on the campaign trail.
Is the federal government constitutionally restricted in favor of state action to address a pandemic? In other words, are our laws getting in the way of an adequate federal response? The answer is NO. The federal government can act on the many critical issues we face. The executive branch has ample legal authority to improve our situation, if only it would.
Our inability to control the pandemic within our borders has caused other nations to quarantine against us. We are now the exporting threat, but at least our allies express pity while they take the necessary steps to protect themselves from us. Instead of responding like a powerful, wealthy, nation with enormous reserves of scientific expertise, the US responds as if we were fifty different, relatively poor nations with inadequate access to critical medical supplies and other basics of public health. Harness the authority of the federal government and use it to protect us, please.
About the Author
Polly Price is an award-winning legal historian and professor of law and public health at Emory, and is the author of two scholarly books and numerous articles on issues related to public health. Her book Plagues in the Nation, a narrative history of America through major outbreaks, is a forthcoming title from Beacon Press. Connect with her online at plaguesinthenation.com and on Twitter at @PollyJPrice.
Those of us who have lost loved ones since the pandemic have mostly been denied rituals of grieving and the comfort of visits with friends and family.
It has been excruciatingly painful to mourn alone, or mostly alone, and to try to move forward without important rites of passage such as memorial services, sitting shiva, opening the house to visitors, and gathering for commitals where we could freely embrace each other.
Please leave a comment below if you would like to attend a Zoom Gathering on All Souls Sunday just for us, for those who are part of this sad collective of those who understand. This will be a spiritual offering not in any particular tradition, affirming of our shared humanity and need for compassion.
I will email you with the Zoom invite. Please leave the name of the beloved person you would like to remember so I can include them in the Litany of Remembrance.
For the ritual, please prepare a candle that you can light and a glass of your favorite libation.
Peace.
Remember the perennial fall television special, Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin? Eventually viewers were shown the interplay between Lucy and Charlie Brown and the question, “Will Lucy pull the football away just as Charlie Brown attempts to kick it?” Every year, viewers sadly noted Lucy was consistent even though she promised Charlie she would not do it to him again this year—yet, she did it anyway. And every year, from our living rooms, we told Charlie not to believe her! Consistency of Forgiveness But, he forgave her. Every time. And, he would wipe the slate clean between them, every […]
The post The Forgiving Heart of Charlie Brown appeared first on BeyondBelief.
Lesson #74
There is no will but God’s.
Another way of saying today’s lesson is “There is no will but Love’s.” The perennial question we can use over and over and over again when faced with stress of any kind is “What would Love have me do?” If we discern the correct answer we experience peace and joy arising. If we turn to the wrong answer, the experience of distress will increase.
We are asked in step three of Alcoholics Anonymous to make a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of Love. The choice is simple: it is the false promises of the ego or the peace and joy of Love?
In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to engage in the free and responsible search for truth and meaning affirming and promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person and a respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.
Today, we are asked to take two 10-15 minute periods and think of some distressful, difficult, troubling decisions we have to make and ask ourselves, “What would Love have me do. There is no real path other than Love’s.” We can also use this same question to orient ourselves throughout the day when we are challenged by difficult situations.
Welcome to /r/UUReddit's Weekend Coffee Hour. Let's get to know each other. Chat about current events (global, national or local), something going on in your personal life, or whatever you feel like discussing. Are you working on a cool community service or activism project? Have you written or created something online that you want to share? Tell us about it. Topics do not have to be strictly related to Unitarian Universalism.
Dearests-
Okay, yes, here we are. It’s the day before the United States official Election Day, the last day US citizens can cast our ballots. I, happily, live in a state that has had mail-in or drop-off voting for some time now (Oregon), and so I received notice of when my ballot had been received from it’s box AND when it had been counted. Ahhhhhhhhhhh…. A sigh of relief. I have done the harm reduction I can do by voting, and that not only that, but I have the relative sense of security of my vote being counted.
I mention all of this even though I know that many of you are not in the States. Because the United States elections up and down the ticket matter to the world. The Presidential election, for sure, but the Senate and House races, down-ticket races in states that are “purple” (Go, Peter Buck!—my dear brother who is running for the state house in Pennsylvania, an essential swing state.), all the way to city councils, mayoral races, school boards and other local votes and referenda. Remember, local officials decide all kinds of things about land use, clean water, construction, education, hell, they make it so that there are enough sidewalks (with curb cuts, thank you very much!) and bus lines to go around.
All that said, that’s not really what I want to talk to you about. Yes, do your harm reduction and VOTE, but that’s done, right? You know what you’re going to do, or you’re watching the election with interest from elsewhere. ‘Nuff said.
I want to talk with you about something related to my Very Exciting News!
The Way of the River has entirely new, entirely revamped, ENTIRELY new look and content. Not only is the color brown only in the images of actual forest rivers (which I do love), and nowhere in the rest of the images or the theme, but the whole feel and look and content is different. I am using lessons I have learned from The Heart of Business, and I couldn’t be happier with the result.
That said, I invite you to visit, and especially to visit the “Is This You?” page. (If you want to see some truly priceless photos of me from the ‘90s, the middle of the About Catharine page is fun too, but not required, by any means.)
The “Is This You?” page speaks about those of us who have hunted for a place where we can really find “the More” of spiritual depth. It’s about those of us who have a religious home but want a more profound experience of spirit. It’s about those of us who are neurodivergent or genderfluid, trans, or non-binary. It’s about those of us who are ambivalent about or alienated from traditional religion.
And so I’m going to share come copy from that page because I want to celebrate those of us who find ourselves reflected among this group. Not everyone I work with is isolated from beloved religious community – certainly, you don’t have to be, to be a part of The Way of the River – but many of us know what that particular pain feels like. And so in celebration, joy, and invitation, I give you, “Is This You?”
You may be drawn to work with me if you
And so, dear friends, if any of this sounds like you, if any of this resonates with you, I invite you to a beat. To take a breath. And then consider whether you might like to work in a small group with other people who will understand where you’re coming from, other people who will know what you’re about, where you’ve been and how you’re doing.
And then simply email me for an assessment, a consultation call to talk about where you are and where you’d like to be spiritually, and maybe we can find a place to work together fruitfully, whether in a group, class, or individually. When so much is uncertain, so much is worrisome, having a companion along the way can be just the thing. And I’d love just to get to know you, in any case!
In these unsettled times, I offer you blessings, blessings, blessings.
Rev. Catharine
PS – Want to see the new website in all its glory: https://thewayoftheriver.com!
PPS – Going into the Dark is coming!! The annual winter solstice retreat will be on your doorstep before you know it!
Gah. I haven't had time to be excited. It's been one of my busier weeks, with interns meeting with me, exams to grade, a class website to experiment with ...
I have so much to do!
I need to put together the party this afternoon or tomorrow! It shouldn't be too hard; it's an online party, I don't have to supply food, just things to do.
I have an online wedding and a Halloween outing to the Board Game Cafe in costume tomorrow. (No, I'm not going to do the costume at the wedding!)
I need to write my first 2000 words on Sunday. Before the book-signing party? After? Both? I need coffee! At least I'll have another hour to do so with Daylight Savings Time ending.
I need to just take a deep breath and do things one at a time. I have the time I need.
It’s hard to believe that it has already been 15 years since October 24, 2005 when Rosa Parks died in Detroit, Michigan at the age of 93. She is revered as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement for sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycottby refusing to give her seat to a white man. A young ministernamed Martin Luther King, Jr. was selected to lead the long campaignthat led to one of the first great victories in for the Civil Rights Movement in the South.
After her death that year, she was widely celebratedincluding the then unheard of honorfor a woman and private citizen who never held high civil or military officeof being laid in state in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol. Tens of thousands filed silently by her flag draped coffin on October 31—Halloween.
I was inspired to write a poem by news coverage of the solemn event. With unwarranted audaciousness, I chose to write in her voice. I had recently listened to some extended interviews and could clearly hear her soft, breathy tone and gentle Southern accent in my head. I knew then, and I know now, that there will be some that take great offense—particularly because I have her voice commentsabout crime and young men in her troubled Detroit neighborhood. But I had also heard her make similar comments in life.
I have read this work several times and it has appeared in this blog before. But it seems an apt moment to revisit it.
Rosa Parks on Halloween 2005
I didn’t hold truck with Halloween.
I was a good Christian woman.
Ask anyone who ever knew me,
they will tell you so.
Back in Detroit young fools,
with pints and pistols
in their back pockets
burned the neighborhood
each Halloween.
Hell Night they called it
and it was.
Heathen business, I say.
I passed on a few days ago.
Time had whittled me away.
Small as I was to begin with,
I had no weight left
to tie me to the earth.
Now I lay in a box on cold marble.
The empty dome of the Capital
pretends to be heaven above.
A river of faces turns around me,
gawking, weeping, murmuring.
I see them all.
Maybe those old Druids,
pagan though they were,
were right about the air
between the living and the dead
being thin this day.
More likely that Sweet Chariot
has parked somewhere
and let me linger a while
just so I could see this
before swinging low
to carry me home.
It makes me proud alright.
I was always proud.
Humility before the Lord
may be a virtue,
but humility before the master
was the lash that kept
Black folks down.
We grew pride as a back bone.
All of this is nice enough.
But let me tell you,
since I’ve been gone,
I’ve seen some foolishness
and heard plenty, too.
They talk all kinds of foolishness
about that day in Montgomery.
All that falderal about my feet being tired.
It wasn’t my soles that ached.
It was my soul.
It wasn’t any sudden accident either.
No sir, I prayed at the AME church.
I went to the Highland School
for rabble rousers and trouble makers.
I met with the brothers at the NAACP
who were a little afraid
of an uppity woman.
Another thing.
That day was not my whole life.
There were 42 years before
and fifty more after.
There was plenty of loving and grieving,
sweat and laughter,
and always speaking my mind
very plainly, thank you.
Sure, there were parades.
There were medals and speeches, too.
But there were also long lonely days.
Once, up in Detroit,
I was beat half to death
in my own home
by a wild eyed thug.
He didn’t care if I was
the Mother of Civil Rights.
He never heard of Dr. King
or the bus boycott.
All he wanted was my Government money.
so he could go out
and hop himself up some more.
That a young Black man
could do that to an old woman,
any old woman,
near broke my heart.
That I could step out my door
and see copies of him
lolling on every street corner
made me mad.
We may have changed the world,
like they kept saying.
We didn’t change it enough.
We didn’t keep the hope from
being sucked out of the city.
This business in the Capital
is alright, I suppose.
And it was nice enough to be brought
back to Montgomery, too,
laid out in the chapel
of my home church.
But clearly some folks have
gone out of their minds.
Why, in Houston the other day,
before a World Series game,
they had the crowd stand silent
in my memory.
It was a sea of white faces
who paid a seamstress’s
wages for a month for a seat.
It seems the only Black faces
were on the field
or roaming the aisles
selling hot dogs.
And, Lord, the two-faced politicians
that came out of the woodwork!
The governor of Alabama
cried crocodile tears
as if he would not be
happy to have
a White Citizen’s Council
membership card in his wallet
if it would get him some votes.
Somebody roused George W. from his stupor,
told him in short easy words
who I was,
and shoved him out
in front of the microphones
to eulogize me.
He looked uncomfortable and confused.
I understand he had other things
on his mind.
What these politicians had in mind
was patting black folks on the head.
“See,” they say, “Mrs. Parks and Dr. King
took care of everything.
They asked for freedom and we gave it to them
a long, long time ago.
What more can you ask?
Now stand over there out of the way
so we can get down to the business
of going after real money.”
It plain tires me out.
Little children, Black and white,
who study me in school,
do not think the job is over.
Your own bus seat must be won every day.
And while you are at it,
have the driver change the route.
—Patrick Murfin
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
― Edna St. Vincent Millay
Whose death are you not resigned to?
The Daily Compass offers words and images to inspire spiritual reflection and encourage the creation of a more loving, inclusive and just world. Produced by The Church of the Larger Fellowship, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation with no geographical boundary. Please support the publishing of The Daily Compass by making a $10 or $25 contribution (more if you can, less if you can't)! Thank you for your support!
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I am so eager for Small Group ministry type programs, and our church has a Soul Matters group. I am grateful that a volunteer runs it. But oh my. Is it a slog. Every time it is a reflection on trauma. This month the theme is "Healing" and here's a handful of the questions to ponder: Has keeping the secret finally become too painful? Are you trying to forget when healing wants you to remember?.Do you need to be reminded that you made a mistake, not are a mistake? Is it possible to see pain as an invitation not just an enemy?
For some people pondering these topics is therapeutic. For others it is, frankl,y triggering. For me ......... I would love to include some theology as a prism to see this through. Not theistic, necessary, just some bit of guidance beyond "ponder your pain, and talk about it".
If you have any tips, or experience with Soul Matters or SGM, please share any tips.
Central East Region of the UUA
Continue reading "Opportunities for Connection ~ November 2020"
Join us this Sunday for our monthly, online Multigenerational Explorations Service!
We will begin and end worship together, with an opportunity in the middle for participants to choose an Exploration activity that best matches their learning style.
Our theme for the month is Healing. Activities include Chair Yoga, a Sharing Circle, and more.
All are [ … ]
The post Sunday, 11/1 ~ Multigen Explorations Service: “Healing” ~ 10:30am appeared first on Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson.
There's nothing unusual about those statistics; cases are spiking across the US, and the US is doing nothing to contain the spread. Some people tout "herd immunity", but there is no way to reach that without a vaccine or without 2% of those getting COVID dying. 2% doesn't sound big, but the 228,000k that have already died sounds like a more alarming statistic.
There's part of me that understands giving up and going back to that unfettered life, life without a mask and with restaurants and vacations, given that the statistics are so bad. But then I think of my age, which is almost old enough to put me at high risk. I think of my husband, who is in a high-risk group. Most of all, I think of how many people I could infect without a mask, without ever knowing I'm contagious.
Life is not as usual, and it won't be for a long time. Every time I think I have adjusted, I am reminded that I need so much more patience.
| The hat was still young and healthy when I wore it at this Peace Vigil in Harvard, Illinois in March of 2002. |
One Fall day back in 2014 I was stumped for a blog post. Everything I found either bored me or would require such an enormous effort at research and probably turn into one of those things that runs to 6,000 words. I know that no one reads those posts unless a blood relative is the subject. Sometime I do them anyway if the topic interests me, but I always regret it. Anyway, both stumped and unmotivated. So I lay idly on a couch for an hour or so, turning my old brown felt hat over and over in my hand closely examining the damning evidence of long hard usage. After a while I said to myself—aloud because the house was empty—“I may as well just write about the damn thing!” Five minutes later I was pounding out the ode below.
Once again, I have nothing better to offer, so here it is again.
The hat in question was a Christmas gift from my wife Kathy in 2001. I was in desperate need of a new dress lid. My everyday work hat was an Indiana Jones style brown fedora I had acquired in the mid-80’s and re-creased into my favored style with a peaked center ridge pinched on either side and the brim slouched. I wore it every day to work as a head building custodian in Cary, Illinois and to whatever second job I held—at the time a second shift gas station clerk at a Crystal Lake Mobile. It was battered, sweat stained, filthy, and looked like it had been run over by a garbage truck.
The trouble was my current dress hat was not in much better shape, even though it was a much higher quality sombrero. It was a nice silver belly Stetson XXX Open Road. I had likewise reshaped it but with it higher crown and a broader brim bound with a ribbed silk ribbon it had once gleamed spectacularly atop my head. It was then only five years old but because of it its light color now looked grimy and dingy. A hole was even emerging from the front of the peak where I grabbed the hat between my thumb and forefingers to take off and on. It clearly no longer qualified as my dress hat and Kathy was embarrassed to be seen with me in either hat. She was a motivated giver.
Kathy spotted the hat on sale during a Christmas shopping expedition we made to Springhill Mall, the closest big merchandising Mecca in a still bustling Sears. Later, when we split up to check out other stores in the Mall, she doubled back and bought it then hid it somehow in the car. It was a light brown, soft felt with a low, flat crown and a wide brim. It had a narrow, light beige suede band that had not been well cut—it varied in width from here to there. It was a then popular style of an exaggerated fedora with an extra wide brim, but was on the low end of the quality scale. She paid about $15 for her prize.
When I opened her present on Christmas morning, I was a bit skeptical. I had never worn a hat with that low a crown. It would not hold my attempts to re-crease it in my favored center peak. It would just pop back into shape. The damn hat had a will of its own. It would not be anything other than how it was made. Sigh. But I needed a hat, so I put it to work.
A week after Christmas it got it’s baptism of activism, when I wore it to a small New Year’s Day peace vigil organized by the American Friends Service Committee—the Quakers—by winter dormant Buckingham Fountain. Kathy and I met my former sister-in-law Arlene Brennan and her husband Michael, my nephew Ira S. Murfin and a girl he knew who was on her way to a winter job shooing bison back into Yellowstone Park to keep them from being shot by Montana ranchers. It was the first of scores of vigils, marches, rallies, and demonstrations over the next 16 years at which I wore the hat. Paired with a trench coat, it went with me to a giant anti-war march in Washington, D.C. later that January and sheltered my head through weekly roadside vigils that the McHenry County Peace Group kept up over the next two and a half years through all sorts of inclement weather.
 |
| The hat and I at the Haymarket monument in Chicago one May Day after I led a Labor service at a U.U. Congregation. |
When I wrote and posted my poem six years ago, the old chapeau was still in daily service. Today it has been demoted to rough duty status. Although it has held its shape remarkably well and resists popping holes at pressure points—which eventually dooms my higher quality Stetsons—the fading and sweat stains can no longer be ignored. I no longer wear it for regular daily use to unless there is heavy rain—its broad brim makes it the best rain hat I ever had. It also holds up well when it is snowing so hard it measurably accumulates on the brim. I still throw it on for yard work, snow shoveling, or and when I walk the dog.
The old brown hat has been replaced for everyday use by a grey Bailey’s U-Roll-It that I picked up in Sheridan, Wyoming back in 2009. It is very different from the old one—curled brim with the front slouched down and a higher crown. It is showing its age too, but is still serviceable for the general running around of a retired geezer.
For Christmas two years ago Kathy got me another new dress hat. This one is very nice but black, a hat color I had never worn. I break it out for our dinner dates at better places, to go to the theater, and for a few special occasions. Most of those opportunities are on hold due to Coronavirus precautions. I have to keep the new hat in a tightly closed plastic bag because each speck of dust stands out against the black.
Anyway, here is my ode to an old hat.
When You Wear a Hat as Long as This One
When you wear a hat as long as this one—
you know, the old brown one
with the broad flat brim
and low crown,
the one Kathy bought you for Christmas
the holiday after 9/11—
you learn to understand that the Universe
is falling down upon you day after day
that stardust, ashes, and cat dander
sift unseen and constant
day after day,
year after year,
one decade into the next
drifting into the creases of the crown,
balling just a tad if you rub your
thumb or fingers across the brim
which has subtly changed color
under the weight
nothing to be done about it
the heaviest downpour does not
wash it away,
nor can you brush it,
or beat it against your leg,
the stuff clings to the fine wool fibers
of the soft felt
and where the sweat and
oil from your dirty hair
touch it, it becomes a little hard
and shiny
and the old band twisted and stained
must be covered by one braided from
bright fabrics somewhere in Nicaragua
and even that band is faded and
dusted in its folds and knots,
and the universe continues to fall unconcerned.
—Patrick Murfin
Wouldn’t it be nice if our personal burdens could be labeled with a “heavy” sticker like boxes or items of luggage, giving those around us some notification on just what needs care in lifting?
What would you like to put a “heavy” sticker on?
The Daily Compass offers words and images to inspire spiritual reflection and encourage the creation of a more loving, inclusive and just world. Produced by The Church of the Larger Fellowship, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation with no geographical boundary. Please support the publishing of The Daily Compass by making a $10 or $25 contribution (more if you can, less if you can't)! Thank you for your support!
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