Living in coronavirusworld 9: Go with the flow

4/1

...always  at home...

April Fools’ Day.  Well maybe not this year. No one's, like, there…

Our Wednesday morning reflection group meets. Some notes:

*Father Clyde has made the painful decision to end the Sunday afternoon services of Ecclesia for the homeless people in the park.  Each congregant was given a morning and evening prayer book prepared by Clyde and a pocket testament and Psalms. He is part of a coalition asking that 25000 hotel rooms be made available for the homeless population as church and other shelters shut down. The city shelters are, in his word, “petri dishes.” Some meals to go services are still in operation, like Broadway Presbyterian. 

*Psalms help get us through, and prayers at particular times of day.

* We’re looking for the prophetic stream, the Holy Spirit flowing through each of us.

* We are not a state, just a large collection of individuals who somehow make it.

*True freedom is obedience to justice and righteousness. Since justice flows like water and righteousness like an everlasting stream, we need to go with the flow, God’s flow. And learn to swim. 

* The didache is a good resource. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didache)

* This (moment in time) is a different rhythm.

* It’s like in Acts 12: 13-19 when Peter is liberated from prison and Rhoda the servant girl goes to tell the others and they tell her she must be out of her mind. 

* We know what to do. We all know “Love your neighbor like yourself” but respond, ‘Yeah, I know, but I don’t feel like it…”

* Is there a plan? Dr. William Barber II says that before CoVid 19, 700 poor people were dying a day. A major action is being planned for June 20th. 

* Thirty refrigerator trucks have been ordered for storage of dead bodies

*Read  The Hidden Wound by Wendell Berry, an essay on racism and the damage it does to us…

* We cannot let this moment pass. We have to learn the lessons. But what lessons?

* Sam says we need to create an alternative reality

* That the other is as valuable as you are (although love of neighbor is held back by the extent of self-hatred)

*  Conservatives are more fearful. True leaders are less fearful.

* Is this moment encouraging idolatry of personal safety?

* We agree to read together the Camus’ The Plague. 

                                                                     ****

Through an interesting set of circumstances, I am a guest of two high school senior religion classes from the GANN Academy in Waltham, Massachusetts. I’m talking on Presbyterianism. I enjoy talking about the best of our tradition:

* The priesthood of all believers, rule by elders. (Presbuteroi)

* How I am a teaching elder, not a priest, a facilitator, not a mediator (therefore similar to a rabbi) How I do nothing magical. 

* In communion, the people are transformed, not the elements

*Marriage is a covenant, not a sacrament, made by two fallible human beings. 

* In reformation, Calvin broke with Luther over governance, communion and nature of the world. 

* In governance, Luther maintained episcopacy with bishops. Presbyterians have a corporate bishop, the elected presbytery, equal parts clergy and lay. Horizontal, not vertical. 

` * In communion, for Presbyterians, Christ is present in the sharing of bread and cup but not in the elements.

* All creation is under God’s dominion and God present in creation. For Luther, there is the kingdom above ruled by God and the kingdom below ruled by satan.

* Since we are under God’s dominion, we are stewards of creation. For Calvin, the highest calling is to be a civil magistrate. Presbyterians are disproportionately represented in congress because of a sense of the sacredness of politics. 

* Our representative  republican form of governance highly influenced the  creation of the American system. We are supposed to elect representatives who will be wise, not ideological. No one party or candidate can ever be the full expression of  the full mind of God, all will fall short, all held accountable.

*Salvation is fully a function of God’s freedom and God’s grace. We cannot gain salvation through our own actions neither can we ever judge another. 

* Marilynne Robinson in the Death of Adam argues that Calvinsim’s concept of the equality of all humans led to the emergence of humanism and the enlightenment. 

The  students were sharp and asked good questions. Like do we really believe in predeterminsim? And I said it was actually predestination, which is best understood by what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  meant when he said the arc of history is long but bends towards justice. Likewise, what about free will? We are always free to accept or reject the grace that God offers, but even that capacity is a function of grace.  Very heavy conversation about God and the Holocaust. I said we had to see it as human, not demonic in order to prevent similar events. (They do, sadly, continue) God was/is present in the suffering, like in Eli Wiesel’s Night, and in those who saved others, as in Le Chambon sur Lignon and others. This was good remote learning. 

The  last question was about the Trinity. My less than adequate answer was that I was a son, a husband and a father simultaneously but still just me. Yeah, inadequate.....

                                                                                                       

                                                                    ****

I talk to a friend from Beverley Church in Brooklyn. She tells me about the refrigerator trucks for dead bodies. And that families are not allowed to take their dead. And that people are then and cremated. 

     

Living in Coronavirusworld 2: Sometimes loving your neighbor is staying away

3/24

virtual St. Patrick's

Yesterday I did my Monday weekly planning at home for the first  time. I usually like to go to my favorite coffee shop, get an almond croissant and latte and plan out the week.  Last Monday, I thought I had one last day before the ordered Tuesday lockdown. But I found the shop had  already converted to takeout only, hoping to make it that way. (Now even takeout is closed.) I got my coffee and croissant and headed to A Philip Randolph Square to sit. The regulars there were in heavy conversation about “martial law,” which they figure is next. That’s how it is in Harlem.

****

Tuesday I went to my physical therapy, still open, on 54th Street.  Walking through the Turnstyle Underground Marketplace at Columbus Circle, most restaurants and food places  were still open. Takeout only, of course. Folks scattered at tables in the concourse, socially distant for the most part. 

New York City Presbytery met by ZOOM and voted to advise all Presbyterian congregations to cease all in person activity “until further notice.” The strongest opposition came from racial/ethnic congregations concerned about remaining “faithful to Christ” regardless of the danger. It took some explanation to make clear it wasn’t about ourselves accepting risk, but that our accepting risk endangers others. That sometimes loving your neighbor means staying away. As a retired pastor with a small pension and social security, I depend on guest preaching, consulting and weddings to augment my income. I began to understand that I would be losing around $1000 month in addition to my lost music gig income. It hurts. Of course, many friends have. Lost all their income. Those projected $1000 or so government checks will be a limited value.

The St.Pat hat collection

At 7pm we gather by ZOOM. The gang that accompanied theologian/activist Peter Heltzel on his annual St. Patrick’s night pub crawl. And traditional 7 PM toast. This year it would be virtual. Wearing green and with my own pint, we toasted, Peter’s son Tristan on his lap. Slainte. 

.....and no place to go....

****

At last night's ...Songwriters' Exchange, one of our youngest members sang about her lost prom and graduation .She was embarassed to put it in the song. Seemed so trivial. "No. Sing about your life," we told her. "We get to the universal through the individual. And this is your life, and your life is not trivial..." All those once in a lifetime experiences gone. 

                                             ****

Today the Center at West Park’s Program Committee met by ZOOM.  It was supposed to be about planning the next season’s residencies but had to focus on cancelled spring programming first. Productions cut off in mid-run. Possible make up in a summer Phoenix Festival? Good idea, but what can we know?

I talk with a chaplain who directs a spiritual  care program for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities. One of only half a dozen or so programs like it in the country. As a day program, all the clients are now homebound. She has  to arrange over 180 home visits by a minimal staff.  The strain is already showing. And how long can their visits continue?

I hear noice outside. Three of my neighbors have been talking on the stoop. The police have stopped to tell then to break it up. I mean they do this under normal circumstances. It's Harlem. A younger man is quite riled. An older man, the young man told the police was "one of our elders," tries to calm him down. "Let it go,"he says, "they just doin' their job..."

The president has said he’d like to “open up for business again” by Easter. “Ready and raring to go!”  he says.  “The cure can’t be worse than the problem,” he says. What world does he live in? Of all the ignorant things he has said, for some reason this enrages me more than usual. We are so unprepared as it is.Visions of stacked bodies. And the Lieutenant Governor of Texas says that if grandparents have to put their lives at risk, even die to save the economy, he’s “all in.”  This grandparent is not. The fact that we have elected officials who think like this both offends and frightens me. Little hope that w ehe the wisdom -or will- to do what’s necessary.

Today was the 40th anniversary of Oscar Romero’s martyrdom.  Even in the midst of coronavirusworld, Oscar Romero, presente.

Living in coronavirusworld 1: One week in

3/23

Closed tonight

One week ago was the last day before it all shut down. Our Wednesday morning reflection group’s ethical conversation about whether we shook meet in person or not, brought to an abrupt close.  Conversations about whether to continue Friday night open mic or not, likewise over. The last dominoes had fallen. There would be no St.Patrick’s Day pub crawl this year. I decided to go to my favorite pub, St. James Gate, to hopefully find my friends, especially RL in his appointed “Bullshit Corner,” and have one last shot. But when I got to the Gate, it was already closed. Maybe I could find RL at his alternate spot a few blocks down the street.  Looking in the window at Frankie Mac’s (formerly MacAleers of NYPD Blue fame), I saw Dion. And Rodne. And Dierdre. So I went in.  One last Jameson’s on the rocks. Tomorrow would also be Rodne’s birthday. No celebration. Mandola Joe sees us and comes in, keeping a safe distance. RL already home. It would be awhile before I see him again. We enjoy our drinks with an underlying sense of sadness….that was last Monday. 

Dion, me and Rodne

On this day, I enter into another day in Coronavirusworld.  At 12:30 p.m., our International Sanctuary Declaration working group, gathering from around the world, need at our regular place, ZOOM.  We are together from New York City, Arizona, El Paso/Juarez, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands…all dedicated to just migration. The updates from around the world are chilling:

* In New York City, many food pantries serving the homeless people  are shuttered. There are serous worries about conditions in the shelters. And where the homeless population will fall in the anticipated triage system of health care. 

* Both the US-Mexico AND US-Canada borders are closed. Meaning getting vulnerable people into Canada is no longer possible. And the streets of Juarez fill up with people unable to cross. NO asylum claims are being heard. Anyone found in the US will be  immediately deported.

* Even so, people continue to find their way into the most deadly parts of the Sonora desert.  Medical volunteers even more constrained than ever. 

* In Amsterdam, legal prostitution is shut down. Even in the compassionate environment of Amsterdam, vast numbers of sex workers are trafficked women. Or young men. The coronavirus leads to a global crisis for sex workers who will turn to more risky and dangerous ways to support themselves.

* Lost in the chaotic US response is any thought  as to how to deal with “social distancing” and other simple health safety issues let alone testing

* Starting in Elizabeth, New Jersey, three ICE detention centers are in the midst of hunger strikes for safety, even rudimentary sanitation  and humane treatment

* Growing concerns over the implications of Coronavirus in the reality of US mass incarceration

Needless to say, it was a sober meeting.

After several warm days, where I developed a routine of a 30 minute walk and 15 minute meditation in the park, it’s cold and raining. Nevertheless, the walk keeps me sane. So out I go. Almost home, I slip on wet pavement twisting my knee.

It’s my son Nate’s birthday, I can’t be there. His brother Dan has made him pulled pork barbeque. I wish I were there.

The Jack Hardy Songwriter’s Exchange meets, what else, via ZOOM.  This exchange meets every Monday, keeping the tradition started by Jack Hardy alive. 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hardy_(singer-songwriter)       

About two dozen of us have gathered tonight. Most of us are struggling through our music to make sense of what’s going on around us, some cynical, some angry, some didactic and provocative, others indirect and suggestive. I’m surprised to have found a sense of hope, inspired by a poem currently circulating on the internet. 

Here are my lyrics:

Listen

They were the first to live the truth of this pandemic

So much unknown, so much to fear

As weeks went by, they begin to listen

And are amazed at what at last they see and hear

For the air was clear

And the sky turned blue 

And the people of Wuhan heard the birds sing again.

In the streets of Assisi, voices fill the square

From open windows their songs fill the air

To tell the lonely people, sheltered in their homes

You neighbors are with you, you re not alone

          For the air was clear

And the sky turned blue 

And the people of Assisi heard their neighbors  sing again.

If we take the time to listen, take the time to learn

Turn away from all that keeps  us from what  we truly need

Heed the warning, heed the sign

That points to a new morning, and points to a new time

For the air was clear

And the sky turned blue 

And the people of Wuhan heard the birds sing again.

We’ve been given a moment to stop and catch our breath

A moment to decide between what is life and what is death

If we are truly open to a time of rebirth

We might learn to heal ourselves, we might learn to heal the earth

For the air will be clear

And the sky will turn blue 

And the people of the earth will hear the birds sing again.

As always, my friends are quick with their critiques: get your verb tenses straight, one verse too many, lose the third; try it as a waltz…

And as always they are pretty much right….

It’s good to be together. I find these ZOOM get togethers and the effort to hold onto normal takes energy. I feel affirmed, but tired after everyone. It’s like we’re hanging in there but with a feeling of dread right under the surface. It’s been one week…..

4th Sunday in Lent: Coronavirusworld

3/22

The word on the street.....

Lots of conflicted feelings about going to Ecclesia in Marcus Garvey Park today. Of course services at Good Shepherd-Faith-and all Presbyterian Churches- are cancelled today. But my brother Clyde  will be in the Park to serve the homeless people who gather there and I want to be with him. 

I’ve come to understand however, that it’s not simply about ourselves when we take a risk. It’s others we put at risk as well.   That raises the stakes ethically. And I’m just at the end of a self-quarantine due to a close friend of mine having come down with the virus. But after much refection, based on the fact that we will be outside, based on Clyde’s understanding of what’s at stake and the fact that many food programs for homeless people have shut down and we are providing a meal, I decide to go. 

It’s colder than it’s been most of the week. Back to the high 30’s. The streets are very quiet.  Even my favorite coffee shop that intended to stay open for carryout has given up. I take the slow walk to the drumming circle at Marcus Garvey.

I find Clyde in a theological conversation about the nature of God with a most emphatic man from Jamaica. As he enters into a discourse on the “illegal Maccabees Bible,” it’s time to begin our service. 

(I later learn that the Maccabees Bible, including the four books of Maccabees and Psalm 151, was banned in British colonial empire days and possession of it considered seditious and punishable by imprisonment!)

There are about half a dozen folks as we begin. Including one who only speaks Spanish. That number will grow as we continue. Our Jamaican friend coughs and Clyde immediately gives a passionate discourse about how to cough and no spitting.  He also talks about fear. How our strange days create fear and we continue to come to the park to allay those fears. We try to get everyone at least six feet apart. Clyde explains how we will have eucharist in only one species today. Each host will be placed on an individual napkin. 

We begin our service. Read the gospel, John 9: 1-41, the story of the man born blind and Jesus healing him with mud. My choice, however, will be to preach on the 23rd Psalm, which I read in Spanish before I begin…..

My friends…these are strange days we are living in. I have never experienced anything like this in my lifetime.  It’s the kind of feeling like in science fiction or horror movies. And it’s the whole world….last night at 9PM Pope Francis called for the  whole world to pray at the same time.  They’re asking us to stop every night at 8PM to say a word for health care and wellness workers. In Spain, France, Italy and Israel they go to windows to applaud workers on the way  to the hospital. 

(Clyde interjects…and they sing!)

So how bad is it now in New York?  New York State has 5298 cases….40% of the nation’s total. At the beginning of the week we had 700. That’s a nearly 700% increase.in one week!  So it’s real. Does anyone here know someone who has the virus? I do. 

The streets have an eerie quiet to them. All the closed shops and stores. We’ve been through hard times before. But it was different. We could come together. Sing songs together. Dance. Play ball games. Hold each other. That’s how we got through.  So what do we do this time?  It’s a great time for ZOOM. They have increased their value 26% in the last month while the market has plunged by 32%. Friday night I was in a nationwide concert on ZOOM. That’s how we do. But not if you’re my mom in her assisted living facility. Not if you’re someone without a phone. You are isolated and alone. 

 So how do we reflect on the moment theologically?  The lectionary this week is filled with rich passages. Some of my favorites…like 1 Samuel 16: 1-13 where Samuel goes to Jesse and goes through all his sons before finally landing on David, the youngest and least likely to be the anointed. Or John 9: 1-41 where Jesus heals a man born blind with a little spit and mud. Another favorite. (Used as an ascription for Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull”..) Both of those have the stuff for many sermons.

But today I have to go with Psalm 23. That’s it, our “go to” Psalm. The one we go to for comfort. There’s a lot of reasons for that. It’s used at probably every funeral we’ve ever been to in our lives. It’s part of the “walk around Bible” most of us have inside of ourselves. Back in the day, the old folks used to have all kinds of Bible verses memorized. They could walk around with them. Not so much anymore. For one thing, we all used to use the King James. Now there are so many versions, there’s no real common shared Bible. And two, well, we just don’t. But we’ve still got Psalm 23.

My denomination uses the New Revised Standard Version. Just not the same.  The darkest valley just doesn’t get you like the valley of the shadow of death….and that’s kind of what it feels like right now. My kids have been fairly frequently reminding me that I’m in the target group. One of my friends is still in the middle  of the fever stage. We worry about my mom. There is a shadow hanging over us. And it’s not just illness. I have friends who have lost all income as bars and restaurants shut down. And multiply that across the country across the world…it’s a BIG shadow. 

But the psalm is about hope. There is the image of bounty. My cup runneth over. (So much better than ‘overflows.”) We always have the choice to view our life as scarcity or abundance. Need or capacity.  When I started community organizing, we started with "Needs assessments. ”  And in most of the communities I worked in the needs were so great that at that point, people were ready to give up. On the other hand, if we started with capacity, it’s a very different story. We always discover we’ve got resources we didn’t even realize we had. 

Theologian Walter Breuggeman  said that doxology is beginning of resistance. Giving thanks is what it takes to start your way back. When I’d been fired and lost my job, I felt so alone. But then a friend asked what I had to be thankful for. It took me aback. But also helped me get on my feet again. I had so much to be thankful for. Nahum Ward-Lev says at the end of every day, we should make a list of what happened during the day for which we have gratitude. It’s not a bad exercise. 

And I will dwell in the house of the lord my whole life long? Or forever? I like  forever. 

Even in the shadows, God is with us. And if we look deeper, listen deeper, what do we see? In his beautiful poem Lockdown, Irish Father Richard Hendrick reminds us that in Wuhan Province, the air is clear again, the sky blue. And people hear the birds sing again. In Assissi, people’s voices fill the square and touch the lives of those who live alone.  We’ve got a chance to stop. To take a breath. And maybe figure out how to heal ourselves. And heal the earth. 

…we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever…

Amen

We have our prayers of  the people. Share the peace from afar. Then one by one, come forward for eucharist. It seems to work relatively smoothly with some hiccups. Someone coughs on a laminated song sheet and we have to get rid of it immediately. 

As we are finishing eucharist, a van stops by. A Park ranger gets out and stops to investigate. “What’s going on here?” She asks.

“We’re having church” says Clyde, “and then lunch.”

“Well keep a safe distance,” the ranger says, “Six feet apart” and then takes off. It’s a reminder of what is so hard to enforce. Even after the ranger’s visit, we still have to remind our congregation over and over.

Finally, Clyde says, ”If we can’t keep six feet away, we just can’t do this anymore…”

 Put the lunch bags on the altar. People come up one at a time. There are so many, we’ve barely enough food. The people take their bags and move on.

Clyde shakes his head. It’s been a struggle. ‘I don’t know” he says. “Maybe we’ll just have morning prayer, forego the eucharist. I don’t like that idea, but…” and he shares the potential vulnerability of his home situation and sense of responsibility. 

“We’ll just have to see…”

No one knows what happens next.

I start my walk home through the empty streets.

No one knows.

Psalm 23

1   The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.2        He makes me lie down in green pastures;
     he leads me beside still waters;3        he restores my soul.
     He leads me in right paths
          for his name’s sake.

4   Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
          I fear no evil;
     for you are with me;
          your rod and your staff —
          they comfort me.

5   You prepare a table before me
          in the presence of my enemies;
     you anoint my head with oil;
          my cup overflows.6   Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
          all the days of my life,
     and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
          my whole life long.

Psalm 23 King James Version (KJV)

23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.