Living in coronavirusworld 88: Covid 19 Update and what we do now

6/20

Notice beauty

I am part of “Covid19 Update” for medical professionals produced by the National Association for Continuing Education. The program is hosted by Dr. Neil Skolnik (https://www.pri-med.com/globals/faculty/s/skolnik-neil) and sharing with me Dr. Leana Wen. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leana_Wen)   Dr. Skolnik sets the stage by reminding us that  more than 113,000 fellow Americans have died of Covid19. More than the Korean and Vietnamese Wars combined. Twenty million jobs lost and 13% unemployment, the most since the Great Depression.  In the northeast there has been a steady decline, but 21 states are now showing rises especially in hospitalizations and ICU units.   Nevertheless the question is not whether to reopen, but how to reopen. 

In Texas, 50% of new cases are young people in their twenties. And non-white positives are six times that of whites.

Dr. Wen reports that the ideologizing of mask use is extremely dangerous. Data shows that use of masks reduce risk by 5 times. An that masks are 80% effective. The claim that the rise in new cases is due to increased testing in testing given that the real number come from hospitalizations.  The point of testing is to bring it down and combined with public health protocols and initiatives, now especially in the public transit sector does that. The principle is the Wayne Gretzky rule, focus not where the puck is but where it is going. Aymptomatic concerns are real and must continue.Of the tested, 40% have antibodies and perhaps as many as 20% if New Yorkers are antibody positive. Hydroxycloride has been tested every  conceivable way and is not only not an effective treatment but may possibly weaken resistance to infection. We need to remember that the virus does not resort our wishes. 

My presentation had to do with spiritual concerns. Here’s what I had to say:

These are difficult times. My topic is a spiritual perspective and I want to begin by talking about patients. What makes this different is that they are cut off from usual means of emotional and spiritual support….family, friends, clergy…they feel alone (New York is allowing hospital visits). You may be one of their only human contacts. Patients often want to  know why, they need a reason. She way of making sense or believing things are not out of control. In responding,  be objective…sometimes things just are. They need to know that what they feel is okay. Hard as it is, the most important thing you can do is to be present. 

Now, for you. Take care of yourself. A nurse said to me, I’m not a hero, just doing my job, but I don’t want to be a martyr. Remember the airplane oxygen warning, put your own mask on first before helping  others. You need to have someone you can  be open with. I learned from Hospice nurses the need to feel free to dislike patients. That even if someone is dying, they can still be pain in the ass.  

The most important spiritual needs are faith, hope and joy. We all have faith in something ….God, science, humanity…..some force outside of yourself. In studying depression, in the lives of  Lincoln, Styron, Mother Theresa…what’s most important is feeling you are part of something bigger than yourself. Lincoln came to live with melancholia when he moved past seeing slavery as a politics issue and came to se it as a personal calling. 

Hope is not optimism.  Things are not getting better every way every day. Hope is to have faith in spite of the evidence and having the courage to work to make the evidence change. I think of the classic statement of Dr. King: the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice

Joy has always been the most difficult for me to get hold of.  Yesterday, I walked out and one block away, there was a parade of hundreds of people with  a New Orleans style street band and banners that said not only “Black Lives Matter” but “Joy is Coming.”  Somehow,  in the midst of pandemic, of social upheaval, of anxiety, anguish and anger…JOY!!! Morningside Park was filled with picnics and barbecues. The fact is we are  always “in the midst of…,” and now more than ever.

Small things are important. Engage in  projects that have nothing to do with virus …Up until Black Lives Matter, almost every conversation I was involved or overheard had do with the virus. We need other conversations. Try to  notice small things…in my walks in the park, I have begun notice:

I.  Birds

                                II. Flowers

                                iii. Turtles

iv. An egret

v. An itinerant trombone player

             

Gratitude is the foundation of  resistance….Every night think, what happened today I can be thankful for? Awe and wonder are essential. For people of our professions, we are privileged  to be there , to be with people at the very center of life…that is something to be thank for. 

A reflection group I am part of recently reread  Camus’ The Plague. I was amazed how much it was like our present moment. I was moved by the journalist who wanted escape to be with his lover. And spent his waiting time volunteering. When his time to leave came, he chose not to go. His life and taken on new meaning. Likewise the priest moved from his pace of traditional faith to a place of more uncertainty and doubt but also meaning. I close with his words: 

“No, we should go forward, groping our way through the darkness, stumbling perhaps at times, and try to do what good lay in our power.”

Livning in Coronavirusworld 37: that's tough, that's life

4/29

New masks by Mili

We’re discussing Michael Moore’s new film, Planet of the Humans, and the issue of “Biomass” and how ultimately it doesn’t really solve the clean energy problem. 

                                                     "Planet of the Humans"

Clyde makes a reference to the long lamented Life Magazine 

and I recall am old song by Gabriel and the Angels, “That’s tough, that’s life..”  Joel quickly finds it for us. 

                                                  'That's Life (that's tough)"

We are gambling  peoples’ lives to reopen.  The President has ordered the meat plants to stay open even without adequate protection for the workers. 

Today's hat of the day honors the Negro League Homestead Grays, arguably the best team in history.  Clyde says : "Better than the Monarchs?" I say "..with Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell...yeah, of course.." 

aruably the b

The mayor is considering closing subway stations as a means of dealing  with the homeless who are sleeping in the subways. The promise is they will be taken to shelters. But the shelters are already overflowing. Clyde repots that at Wards’ Island there is no social distancing and still no soap or hand sanitizers.  He knows people who left the shelters because they did not feel safe. And people rousted from the subways often lose half their possessions. 

Pascal said: “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Steve Phelps offers a Camus quote connecting unhappiness and the lack of language….

We ultimately need to be able to handle solitude. 

Our current situation can feel like Sartre’s No Exit. 

We turn our conversation to our final look at Camus’ The Plague.  

I’m taken by the character Cottard who loses it at the end. He is unprepared for the plague to end. He had found meaning his life he  had never had before. When the plague ended, he opened his window and starts shooting  at people. I recalled the time after 9-11 when some people, deeply involved in volunteering, began to find their life in 9-11 world. When the “emergency “ ended 18 months later, they didn’t know what to do . 

Sam cals this a liminal space and Steve Holton says our job is to hold onto that liminal space. Sam says we need to be both observers and participants.  The liminal is an opening to another world. And we now have an opportunity to recreate the world. That is the gift. She feels that in this solitude she’s revisiting her life. As Joel says, thinking  of his childhood when they  ended “corporal punishment,” it’s like we’ve all been sent  to a "big timeout.” 

I understand the  importance of absurdity to Camus. The plague is ultimately absurd. It has no  inherent meaning.  Meaning is found in our response to the absurd. In humans, it brings out the good and bad. With a slight edge to the good.  At the end of the book, the almost personified plague will return to test us again.

Isaiah said,  “My thoughts are not your thoughts an day way she not your ways.” (55:8). We can’t be looking for cause and effect. And we must take care of ourselves, like in the airline preflight instructions, put your own mask on before helping your child. 

Phelps suggests it’s all in how we define absurdity. Every act or idea can be seen as meaningless and therefore absurd. In the lack of ultimate meaning our acts can be observed to be absurd. For a Christian, love is the way to come close to the divine. And references Gianni Vatimo for th ethought that there is nothing in Scripture except hope.   There’s a pattern to how people respond to plagues. Only more dead people changes opinions. Some saw the novel as a metaphor for nazism.  Camus’s effort to  come to terms with the murder of millions and millions of people. 

There is the issue of proximity. If it’s not next to me I don’t see it. The woman protester who doesn't understand why she can’t get her hair done. Perhaps she would feel different if getting her hair done killed her mother Or daughter. 

We don't  need to return  to normal. Normal was a problem the future can be better. As US death now lead the world, where’s the chant ‘We’re number one!”? 

the sirens are constant

                                                                                                                  ****

The PCUSA Central America study team is trying to  deal with the Presbyterian General Assembly being turned into a virtual assembly dealing with primarily institutional issues.  In the smaller context of ongoing  conflict within the  bureaucracy, 

In the meantime, in Guatemala, recent deportees arrived with the virus. In Honduras, people are being sequestered in stadiums, just like in Camus’ Plague. The former leader accused of mishandling aid. And San Pedro Sula is now a  hot spit. 

Throughout  the region, the absence of remittances from migrant workers in  theUS has a devastator effect on the economy. 

Nicaragua has essentially ignored the crisis. Rosario said that God would protect Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba. Meanwhile, Venezuela is using community organizations to track the spread of the virus and those who have been infected .Cuba works on medical responses and sends out medical volunteers to hard hit countries. Someone take Nicaragua aside and wake them up . There are neighborhood volunteers working on concientizacion, that is awareness of the disease andh oe it spreads. 

Venezuela hashed over 10000 rete and is being gadded by Russia, China and Cuba. Cuba was angered at he arrival of infected Nicaraguans. Nicaragua has finally closed its airpot until June. 

The study team has its work cut out for itself because there's now a before, and after.

                                                                                                           ****

Strange when your excitement comes from the arrival of a new order of masks. And these were not exactly as expected. So we will reflect and reconsider.  Yes these are masks we are talking about. 

Even on a cloudy day, it's still good to walk.  In the Conservatory Gardens, a man and his family are celebrating the publication of his new children’s book. 

The Conservatory Gardens

                                                                                                        ****

One of our long term...and high risk... PHEWA members has been diagnosed with the  virus. He is old. This is concerning. It happen at a rehab facility…

The husband of West Parks former music director, a man in  his mid 50’s dies. The drug stores are running out  of sympathy cards.

tulips