5/23
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| Thanks. |
As I start my walk, thee’s a commotion on the corner of 116th. There are three police cars and another speeding up Adam Clayton Powell, sirens wailing. A black man is pushed onto the hood of the car, face down, arms behind him being cuffed. One guy….four units??? I hear a voice behind me, “ All the time, all the time, all the damn time…..” Any time a black man is being taken down by 4 police cars, you know where the sympathy of the street is going to be. Even without knowing the story. I think about taking a picture, think better of it....
My stimulus check arrived today! With Donald Trump’s name right there by the Statue of Liberty. Kind of took me by surprise. I’d more or less given up, or assumed it was a long-range project.
When mine didn’t arrive a few weeks ago, I went online to trace my check. I got an ominous “unable to process” which led me to call the office, be on hold for about three hours, finally reach someone and the be told it was the wrong office and I had to call another number. Where the phone tree left no option of speaking to a real human being. I figured some random thing must be wrong somewhere. And that this could take months. SO, one of these minor victories we celebrate.
I took the check to the local HSBC which is closed except for its ATM’s. I keep getting a message about “unable to verify.” So I take today’s walk north to 125th to TD Bank where all goes well. I see a massive long line for Whole Foods and decide to head back to my neighborhood Best Market with a much smaller line.
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| the Whole Foods line.... |
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| seen at whole foods |
One of those days with long phone conversations. One friend was trying to get to a family event in Pennsylvania. Transportation seems to be possible. He got as far as Philadelphia only to find there was no further public transportation available. He described the echoing emptiness of Penn Station and the 33rd Street station on Philadelphia. Riding in empty New Jersey Transit cars between Trenton and New York City. The mixed feelings of eeriness, emptiness and frustration.
My other friend is in a pastoral position at one of our “flagship” congregations. She used to be at a neighboring small parish. She has just had four major travel events cancelled including two or three international. You might say we live in different worlds now. Her church will be there when this is all over. Her church is on full ZOOM now. I understand how draining that can be. As well as the feeling that members have access 24/7 to your life. There are some churches that will weather this storm quite well. Others will not. There are just way too many churches saddled with way too many buildings to maintain.
The night’s cultural event is the Labyrinth Theatre’s ZOOM production of Our Lady of 121st Street, by award winning Stephen Adly Guirgis and a truly all star crowd of actors like Bobby Canavale and Laurence Fishburne and John Doman among others.(https://labtheater.org/ourlady) Like any good play, it’s about relationships, what goes, what stays over time. And a wonderful alcoholic sister who touched every character's life in one way or another...and hey, it’s just six blocks away….
Im thinking about the irony of the social distancing markers at TD Bank: Stand together by standing apart…
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