Living in coronavirusworld 262: Second Week in Easter

 4/14

Harlem Meer

Second week of Easter. I wear a Brooklyn shirt and hat in honor of the 74th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking the Major League Baseball color barrier. Last night in the Inspired Word  Showcase and Open Mic I sang a song reflecting on spring and our tentatively easing our way back into the open again as vaccines and testing take hold. In Canada, a new curfew has been imposed. My family in Germany  reports that   trying to live up to the European Union’s collective decision related to vaccine purchase has left them behind as the other countries made their own  deals. Fears about Astrazeneca and clotting have taken it off the market even though the percentages are minuscule.  And now Johnson and Johnson too. And a new shut down is announced. Here in the US we seem to be relatively well off. 

Ducks on the pond

tribute

tulips

Tulips are in bloom. Ducks returning to Morningside  Park. Votive candles mark where a body was found.

I can actually visit meet my mother in her assisted care facility now. Carefully checked and monitored of course.   At our Presbyterian Health Education and Welfare Association meeting, Doug  from Minneapolis reports a tense city as yet another police shooting dearth of a Black man has occurred and a verdict in the George Floyd murder trial awaits.  Another in the   never ending skein of school shootings has taken place. The Major League All Star baseball game ha been moved out of Atlanta due ti Georgia's efforts to suppress Black votes. Some 35000 asylum approved immigrants wait on the other side of the border for President Biden to sign an order raising the cap and the Republicans and FOX want is to believe we’ve lost control of the border and Tucker Carlson has all but said white people are in danger of being replaced. That’s where we are.

Our gospel readings have bene filled with traumatized disciples demanding proof of this risen Jesus. And even in his resurrected passing through walls form, his body still bears the marks of his crucifixion.  And by this they know him. 

He meets some on a journey to Emmaus. Others journey to Jerusalem. And the will go even farther. We are on journey of our own. And to where? 

What is gone is gone  and won't come again

What will be is not yet seen,

We are living somewhere in between. 

It’s been year.

And we’re still here.

We are here. 

On this journey there will be false starts. Wrong turns. The GPS will say recalculating. Cul de sacs and dead ends, interstates, blue highways and stuck in traffic. But we are going, 

Fredrick Büechner has said If you want to know who you really are as distinct from who you think you are, keep an eye on where your feet take you.

We are going, 

(Thanks to Roger Gench for some of these ideas and images…)