Living in coronaviriuswolrd 242: Inauguration Day

 

1/20

Bernie

The day begins with our Underground conversation. Early on, there is the sound of cheering from one of our rooms as word begins to spread that Trump has left the White House for the last time. We have been waiting for this day for four years. We talk of Brian McClaren’s call for a new movement of Christians to reclaim the integrity of our tradition by focusing on the following of Jesus as a way of life and not giving assent and demanding allegiance to a set fo theological propositions and social mandates. (https://wildgoosefestival.org/christianity-after-trump/?blm_aid=52107) We spend a lot of time talking about the difference between biases and values and the need of a community to help us check our biases and the need for a diversity of biases within a community to keep us honest. 

Steve P, in reflecting on the refusal of Republicans to wear masks, uses the analogy of “peeing in the pool.” Why is the concept so hard to get? 

I share my thoughts on the new movie “One Night in Miami” (https://www.amazon.com/Night-Miami-Leslie-Kingsley-Ben-Adir/dp/B08NLFDCXZ) about the meeting in Miami after Cassius Clay wins the title for the first time. Clay, football player Jim Brown, singer Sam Cooke and Malcom X gather to discuss Clay’s immanent conversion to Islam and the direction of the struggle for Black liberation in the US. The dynamics of that conversation are still very much with us today. I was moved by Malcolm’s playing Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” and challenging Sam Cooke to use his talent for the struggle. Cooke’s “A Change is gonna come.” would later help to define the era.

                                                       " A change is gonna come"

I turn on the ceremony. Jennifer Lopez sings “This Land is Your Land”, of course leaving out the radical verses, and my brother texts me that Woody must be spinning in his grave. After a shout out to unity in Spanish…and an odd reference to her own song, “Let’s get loud,” she segued into ‘America the Beautiful,” a performance which set the tone for many other performances over the course of the day. Lady Gaga pretty much killed it with her take on the National Anthem. (When I see her, I see not only the star but the young woman who attends mass with her mom in one of our local neighborhood churches where a friend of mine served as priest.) Andrea Gorman’s poem restated passionately much of what new President Biden had said in his quiet, dignified, and sincere way in his acceptance speech. And then there was Garth Brooks in his cowboy hat singing the first ‘Amazing Grace” of the day.  Thankfully, the day went off without incident. Although having to surround the capitol with armed troops is still a strange and disturbing site, a legacy of the deputing president.  But my favoirte image of course, is Berne Sanders in his parka and mittens becoming a meme.

Somehow, in another inauguration day miracle, I manage to get an appointment for a Covid vaccination tomorrow at 7:45 AM. 

Later I would watch the Salute to America Inauguration special produced in lieu of the Covid cancelled balls. Tom Hanks hosted. Every musical genre was checked and most ethnicities.  Heroic workers from around th country were introduced and  told their stories. There would be yet another Amazing Grace and a Hallelujah at the memorial for the Covid victims. (Question: has anyone ever actually listened to the words of that song?) The President and Vice President spoke, as did three former Presidents, Bush, Clinton and Obama. Reminding me again how once  upon time, dignity  and decency were expected. It all ended with the first couples  holding hands as we watched a gigantic fireworks display.

Okay. Here’s the thing. Sure, some of this felt over the top, cheesy, schmaltzy, middle brow? I'm looking for the right word. But in all that, I felt strangely comforted. It's as if the normal, annoying America was back, and it was wonderful. On at least three occasions I found myself tearing up with this sense of gratitude…and relief.

I took the time to watch the former President’s farewell. This great bete noire (bete orange?) of American politics seemed so small, even pathetic. Not to discount the wreck and ruin of these last four years, or the recent still shocking siege of the capitol, but the lingering image is one of smallness.

The incoming administration did it all right. Did all they could to reassure us that we were back in familiar territory again. A country we could recognize. For this I give thanks.

 

Living in Coronavirusworld 241: One day closer

 

1/17

What we need

Our ZOOM meeting with my mother in her assisted care facility is filled with tech issues. My mom's been left with only "speaker view" so she can't understand why people keep disappearing. Explaining is not easy. The transcript would be an entertaining slice of Coronavirusworld life one act.  My niece, a middle school principle in Ohio, says "So now you know what it's like trying. to teach these days."

The Gate has added outdoor heaters, like more and more restaurants every day. But heated tables are in high demand so my friend and I are luck to get an unheated table at the corner. Where the wind whips around. I stick with Jameson's but she goes with a hot toddy. And a shepherd's pie for me  to keep warm. We can make it just about an hour in this weather.  When I go in to pay the bill, owner Paul is happy for our loyalty. Shots are shared.

1/18

Coffee, pastry and Sunday Times at my favorite Venezuelan cafe. But the wind keeps rustling my paper and cooling my coffee so its a short visit. 

As our family gathers for its weekly international ZOOM meeting, we all struggle to come to terms with our current covid reality. Two of us here in New York, teachers, are scheduled for vaccines. My son in Berlin is especially confounded as the country that seemed to have it all under control and was seemingly a model response now seems to be completely at a loss as to what to do as numbers pass New York City and percentages near American levels and a new lockdown in effect.  Teachers have all but given up.

waiting for the vaccine

First day of vaccinations at Wadleigh High School across the street from me. People lined up around the block. Like the voting lines. 

Late afternoon, as the sun goes down, we walk to the Israeli cafe for coffee. There is some anxiety around the lack of ventilation in the outdoor seating area. So we don't stay long. We walk in the dark to Central Park to see if the floating tree in the Harlem Meer is still lighted. The tree is still there. But now dark.

1/19

Martin Luther King, Jr. day

Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Tonight we cancel our Bible Study because the New York City Presbytery is holding a (virtual) Rosa Parks/Martin Luther King, Jr. commemoration service. Music from a Black church in Harlem and a Korean church on Queens, A preacher from Detroit. The sharing of communion, each in our own place.  On this King day, in this year, on the cusp of the exit of a disgraced President and the inauguration of a new one, there is a special resonance to the vision of a Beloved Community. Dr.King's radical vision needs to be reclaimed from the effort to take the hard economic analysis out of his witness. He was ready to take on, to name, the predatory consuming nature of capitalism. Beyond identity politics, the progressive political constituency needs to bring the class issue back into focus in the years ahead.

1/20

Donald Trump's last day in office. We are on the verge of the change. My friend Steve comes up for coffee. We sit in the cafe's patio and review these last 4 years. Wondering how we can begin to overcome the gaps between two countries. There is a growing awareness that significant portions of our religious communities sold their souls in support of a nativist authoritarian politics. Both orthodox Judaism and evangelical Christianity have much to answer for. 

I spend three hours trying to find an appointment for a vaccination, all to no avail.

The President elect hosts a ceremony with 400 lights to commemorate the now more than 400,000 deaths from Covid. Repeat that number...400,000 fellow citizens, fellow Americans. Dead. More than World War II. The lights glow next to the reflecting pool. On into the darkness. 

Living in coronavirusworld 240: Shabbat and Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.

1/15

My friend Rabbi Steve asked me to preach his shabbat service the Friday night before the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Here's what I had to say:

So this is the shabbat before our annual commemoration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And this year, this shabbat finds us midway between impeachment and inauguration. The start of 2021 has not been, well, exactly smooth. (The other day I was walking in Central Park beside the Harlem Meer. I saw a goose land on the wet ice and its webbed feet immediately started scrambling and he was flapping his wings, trying to find balance and I thought, dude, I feel you…)

It’s interesting that tonight’s Torah portion is Va-ay-rah…"God appeared"…Exodus 6:2-9: 35.  It’s your basic passover story. With Moses singing that spiritual ‘Let my people go” and all these plagues coming. Believe me….we know from plagues. And like the Israelites were in oppressive exile in Egypt, we have been in “internal” exile oppressed by a virus that has walled in our life, taken loved ones from us and separated us one from another. If anyone thinks this is a hoax, I lost three close friends in three weeks last year.  Thing is, in the Bible God sent those plagues. And in no way do I believe God sends this plague. But I will say this, I believe that if we work in partnership with God, good can come out of even the worst of times. Which is where we come back to Dr. King.

What made up Dr. King’s witness?

* First, his witness was faith rooted. His faith inspired him, sustained him and gave him a language. His was the voice of “Let my people go.” And his Black church tradition had a long time connection to the Jewish tradition because his faith community saw in the origin story of the Jewish people, their “passover” from slavery to freedom, a story that could inspire  their own journey to freedom. In his “I have a dream" speech,  he quoted the prophet Amos’ stirring words, “let justice flow down like water and righteousness like an overflowing stream.” 

* That connection meant Dr.King’s movement was inclusive, interracial and interfaith because that was his vision of a beloved community. One of his closest supporters was Abraham Joshua Heschel who said of marching with Dr.King, “I felt like my feet were praying.”

* Third, and this is very important, Dr. King’s witness was an American witness. It is so ironic. We all know how J.Edgar Hoover used the FBI resources against Dr.King because he believed he was a dangerous subversive. The fact is, no one believed in America more than Dr.King. Dr.King took America at its word, that it truly wanted to be what it said in its founding documents and sacred songs. Of course, the events of last summer and the attention brought by Black Lives Matter has reminded us that much was wrong from the very start. But the thing is, ideas, ideals have more power, more truth than the flawed human beings who create them.  Dr. King created that cognitive dissonance between what we said and what was and asked us, which is it? And the arc of history bent just a little more towards justice, 

One more thing…Dr.King had come to realize that it’s more than prejudice, that the economic situation needs to change as well.  And that is equally true for Americans of all colors.

SO what does this say to us on this shabbat, January 15, 2021?

* We need to reclaim the tradition of the prophets as an important part of our heritage…understanding as Heschel said that a prophet comes from a people and speaks to a people and the primary motive of a prophet must always be love..too many people who criticize think  that somehow  they are separate from what they criticize…we are in this together…the US is us...

* We need to renew our belief in America. In  what is best about who we have been, who we are and who we can yet be, ever striving to bring our reality closer to our ideals.

And finally this…this has been the most divisive time in our country’s life that I have lived through. We have to find our way past the division. I think of these words of Dr.King as my closing:

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”

Shabbat shalom. 

Living in coronavirusworld: Holding on

 1/14

Harlem Meer

Tulsa Ice Oilers

This morning I’m wearing a hat and sweater form the 1933 Tulsa Ice Oilers hockey team. Mainly in recognition of Tulsa as a treasure house of Art Deco. Because the oil barons who built the city wanted the best and most up to  to date. Including the Boston Avenue Church, the Radio City Music Hall of churches. (For real.)

It’s hard to realize that only one week ago was the siege of the capitol. One of the collateral damage stories is of the sequestered congress people stuck together in a small room with Republicans refusing to wear masks. And now several colleagues have tested positive for Covid. It’s criminal. Like unprotected sex with undisclosed AIDS. These people should be removed from office. We are now in the 10th month of coronavirusworld. 

We speak of many things:

*the “zero vs, the infinite” as in rioters transferring “power” to Trump…they think they are superior than they know that the are not..

* Watching the siege on the capitol, we’re all called to self-examination, asking when we may have felt  the same, even acted the same. Discernment is truly important. When I say it seems to me that many there who "truly believe…,”  Steve P stops me because “true belief” is not a valid category in the conversation. “Blind faith..”is not a valid reason for action. Are there no villains, but a lot of victims? 

* Symbolic vs. instrumental values. 

* Is it about me forever, or loving your neighbors, even enemies?

Steve P thinks we need to remind those Christians who so passionately follow Trump that they have forgotten their religion, That they have entered into a space where disagreement is self-excommunication.  We debate to what extent Christian language and imagery still shapes the American narrative. Dre maintains that for many millennials, that’s over. I noted that in my experience with Occupy, even though they were militantly anti-religious, Christian imagery still filled their poetry and songs. And I also argue that there is something archetypal about the Jesus story that transcends culture. 

We all are filled with uncertainty as to what happens next.

                                                                                         ****

In reflecting on the year ahead, the leadership of New York City Presbytery must deal with the loss of over 600 members last year, including over 500 from just two “tall steeple” Manhattan churches. And currently with 87 sanctuaries, some 30 churches have no pastoral leadership. On the other hand, attendance for many of the virtual services outnumbers previous live ones.

1/15

Our Sabeel conversation focuses on Baptism. Our vows to participate in fellowship, communion and breaking bread. And to resist evil and proclaim the good news, loving neighbor and pursuing justice, and peace. Which we commit to “with God’s help.” Omar want to know if it’s more than “signs in a restaurant,” do we really take it seriously, is there Christian accountability?

I speak of the need to beyond the traditional idea of baptism as a kind of “spiritual inoculation” to keep babies out of limbo and more of a community commitment. We cannot live the Christian life without community. 

It is pointed out that in our tradition, new members are baptized as part of the Easter vigil, symbolizing that as Christians we share in Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.

                                                                                 ****

on Harlem Meer

Walking through Central Park, I see a goose land on the wet ice of the Harlem Meer, his webbed feet skittering and wings flappier as he tries to find equilibrium. I look t tom and say, “Yeah, that’s what stating this year feels like…”

In Morningside Park, I see no life. No ducks,. No geese. No turtles. Like Holden Caulfield (in Catcher in the Rye) I wonder where they go. 

Along 118th street, anti-trump signs remain.

anti-Trumo signs

no Black vax

The ATLAH church encouraging Black people NOT to take the vaccine .”Remember Tuskegee” The evil use of black prisoners for medical research haunts us still…

a tree remains

Christmas trees remain in the parks.                                In normal years I find lingering Christmas decorations annoying, at least. Not this year. I never really felt fully embraced by Christmas this year. Just like everything seems to exist in a hazy place somewhere between virtual and real.I still feel comforted by those lights. I can hold on a little longer. 

Living in coronavirusworld 238: Come and see

 

Hatlem Meer

1/11

Our Bible Study group tonight is looking at the Gospel text for next Sunday, January 17, the second Sunday in  Epiphany. John 1: 41-53 is John’s telling of the calling of Jesus’ first disciples.  It immediately follows Jesus’ baptism story, though this telling does not specifically have John baptize Jesus. Only in this telling are these first called disciples of John. (Russ of course is sure Jesus was a disciple of John.) Jesus has travelled from Bethany outside Jerusalem to Bethsaida on the northern end of  the Sea of Galilee. The main character here is Nathanael, who only appears in John.  And note that Jesus is identified as “son of Joseph,”  suggesting that there was a belief that Joseph was Jesus’ father. Nathanael jokes”what good can come out of Nazareth?” As it was a small, secluded, backwater kind of town. Jesus responds calling Nathanael an “Israelite without deceit”…which Marsha sees as a reference to Nathanel being guileless. 

Jesus is also setting up a kind of pun. As the first to be named Israel was Jacob, the classic deceitful trickster. Jesus moves form there to an image of himself as Jacob’s ladder (51) with angels going back and forth to heaven.  As Stephen Mitchell saw Jacob himself as the ladder, Jesus there becomes the ladder connecting heaven and earth, and thus the son of man, the human one. (The Jacob’s ladder story, Genesis 28:12, was my text when I peached the sermon for Congregational Sim Shalom at Thanksgiving shabbat. (http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2020/11/living-in-coronavirusworld-217.html )

A phrase that appears several times in this passage is “come and see.”  Jesus invitation is if you want to know what he is about, you have  to come and see, and then it will be clear. Show, not tell as they say. 

We note that:

*John points out Jesus to his disciples as the “lamb of God” or Passover lamb, not clear whether Jesus was ready for that or not.

* John says that he did not know Jesus before but when he saw the dove, he knew. While some of us see this as though this story did not have the two as cousins, as in Mathew, Amber Lee points out that this could simply be a new insight into Jesus reality, as in, he didn’t know that.  As Epiphany is about revelation or getting it, this is a perfect Epiphany story because it reveals Jesus. He accepts Nathanel’s skepticism and responds, in essence, you ain’t seen nothin yet.

That seeing is very important to Marsha. She points out that Nathanael follows because Jesus seems him. Maybe because he’s the kind of guy no one sees. We wonder about how many of those who stormed the capitol did so because they do not feel seen. In my work with homeless people, it’s  clear that the worst part of being homeless is that you become invisible, no longer seen. And as their invisibility continues, their connection to  reality slips further and further away. My friend Marc Greenberg of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing always said that more important than giving money is seeing people, affirming their humanity. 

This passage comes up on the weekend before Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday. It’s a story of calling.  Fredrick Buechner suggest we should sing “Adeste Fidelis” again this weekend, “O Come All Ye Faithful…”

As I ponder the events of last week, I think of Gandolf’s words to Frodo in Lord of the Rings…”We cannot choose the time we live in. We can only choose what we do with the time we are given.” 

Cone and see. Come and see,

                                                                                                          *****

the last Santa...

On a tech trip to Chelsea I see one last Santa Claus…has he been stranded? Stayed too long at a Russian Christmas celebration?…at a Mexican food truck….

                                                                                                          *****

the trees come down..

The Christmas display across from Morningside Park is coming down…

                                                                                                       ****

“Drinking Religiously” out of 4 Saints Brewery in Asheboro, North Carolina begins with our convener sharing the logo of the Poor Peoples’ Campaign, and asks what it brings to mind. Sadly, it immediately conjures up images of the siege of the Capitol last week. We reflect on the meaning of poor.  We recognize that all of us in the conversation, compared to people the world around, are privileged. Even as I contemplate the thin line between making it and not and how vulnerable, I, most of us are. How do we identify? How do we understand abundance?

How do the people who invaded the Capitol understand themselves? I am aware and puzzled by the fact that friends of mine from the Occupy movement have been involved. They see the response to Covid as tyranny, staking away freedom. They have. Somehow fallen sway to Qanon fantasies. And see this invasion as somehow a continuation of Occupy Wall Street. I struggle with this. I guess once you mistrust authority, it can just keep going.Once you believe on conspiracies, it’s open game. And in this motley crew are people who legitimately been left behind and been manipulated like street gangs of late Weimar Germany. I am still not sure where we go with all this…

Living in coronavirusworld 237: January 6th, reflections....

Epiphany

1/7

Yesterday was January 6th...Epiphany. Celebrating the visit of the Magi to the Christ child. And now with broader connotations of sudden deep insight, like a light comes on and all of a sudden you “get it.” The events of yesterday in Washington ,DC were certainly a manifestation and a revelation. If there was any question at all, yesterday’s events revealed the naked reality of the Trump movement as it invaded the Capital building, disrupted the work of congress and vandalized private spaces. Maybe some sycophantic Congress people had their own epiphany and “got it,”but have yet to own their own complicity in this assault on democracy. Some persisted deep into the night with their perversion of democratic process. The work got done. Biden’s day will officially come. But some things can’t be undone. Or unseen. Like American flags, confederate flags, Trump flags and Jesus banners waving over the insurrection. It’s going  to take an extended Epiphany season to bring light to this darkness.    

1/7

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, turns out you haven’t. Which is a nicer way to say, unfuckingbelievable, but then, maybe all too...

Our morning conversation  group met. We talked about the Georgia election. The opportunities that opens up. My friend Steve walked up town and we had coffee in the backyard garden of the cafe.  For him, it was a miracle. All we have to do is get through the electoral college count today with minimal annoyance. The vice-president having remembered that he swore “before God” to defend the constitution. Though we have clearly different theologies, the Vice President does take the God business seriously. 

So I go home and turn on CNN and in the middle of the Arizona objection, things get weird. Windows being smashed in. Senators and representatives ordered to the floor. Guns drawn. People chanting USAUSAUSA! Waving American flags, and Trump flags and Confederate flags and a large banner proclaiming “Jesus”. What? Some guy’s got a sign that says “no foreskin no peace”. Maga hats and qanon t’s. People  scaling walls. It’s like a Hieronumous Bosch vision of the capital. I keep looking at faces. Knowing that many sincerely believe the country has been stolen and Is going down the drain. There’s the guy sitting in Pence’s chair. The guy standing at the podium declaring Trump won. The guy who invaded speaker Pelosi’s office and put his feet on her desk. Stole her mail.  I look at faces. I want to understand. 

I see it and I don’t believe it. What we’ve feared is happening. At his command.

I can’t watch anymore. I have to go for a walk. One block up the street, I see a naked black man. What? Like an NFL running back he hunches his shoulders, moves across the street like he’s breaking through the line. Two police cars scream in. I see him, back bent over, arms pulled back, kneeling, cuffed. I can’t help but be reminded of images of slave markets.

I’m sure this was just a matter of mental illness or some substance issue. It is completely unrelated to what’s going on in DC. But because one follows the other, they link in my mind and free association dances between the capital and a naked man on a Harlem street. All I feel is a world unhinged that won’t come together. All I can do is keep walking. Sirens here, sirens there. Keep walking. It’s the12th day of Christmas. Epiphany. Keep walking. Keep walking. Keep walking.

Living in coronavirusworld 236: Beginning again

1/3

Friends...

A computer breakdown has silenced the blog for awhile...I’ll begin again on IPad until we get a new laptop! Here’s reflections on the second Sunday in Christmas:

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life,[a] and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.[b]

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own,[c] and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,[d] full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son,[e] who is close to the Father’s heart,[f] who has made him known.

So happy 10th day of Christmas, happy 2nd Sunday in Christmas and of course Happy New Year to you. We are at the beginning of a new year and if ever there was a time we needed a new beginning, this is it. Of course as a friend of mine says, just because the calendar year changes doesn’t make everything ok, but let’s claim this as a chance to start over.

As each of the gospels has a it’s own Christmas story, this is  John’s. Of a Christ who has always been and  who now comes to earth to be with us. And fitting for a month of new beginnings, John uses beautiful poetry to take us back to the very beginning, Genesis1. And how does God bring the world  being? He speaks it being. Gods word brings it all into being. 

At the beginning, God separates light from darkness. And let me say both are important. And like Isaiah says, (9:2, 42:6-7, 60:1-3)”...the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light”, “...the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. “ And in so many ways, we have been walking in darkness. These have been long dark months. But the darkness has not overcome it.

So God’s word becomes flesh. I want you see a progression here, first the children of Israel believed God lived in the traveling ark. And then in the Temple. And then in Jesus day,there were those who believed God lives in God’s word and anywhere God’s word is God is. And now John announces, John reveals that Gods lives in our very midst!

If the prologue tells us the essence of the gospels, v.12 tells us what it means to be a disciple...

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

Roger Gench has pointed out that in the original Greek, whenever John talks  about “belief” it’s a verb, not a noun. So those who believe into Jesus have been given power. A lot of Christians have trouble with that word. Think it negative. Actually, in Spanish, eg, it simply means  to be able to.  Our problem is not power but people who exert power over others. What we are given by Jesus is power  with. To be able to do...together.  Hear that.

It says “ no one has seen God.” But like Moses, we see God by where God has been and when we see Jesus, we see God. Now go with me here...today when we take communion, we take Jesus into ourselves. We want him to abide in us as we abide  in him.  When we see Jesus we see grace, compassion and most of all love. It’s not something to feel, it’s something we do. And we want to love so people can see God in us,  an see the Christ that lives in us. 

As we rush to leave behind what was a very bad year, not soon enough gone, let us pause for a moment before letting it all go. Even as we mourn our very real losses, Let’s remember what we learned about ourselves and others. Let’s give thanks for all the dedication, determination and creativity that sprang forth. And most of all, let give thanks for all the people and all the ways that they helped pull us through, who pull us through every day. We see God by where God has been. And God has been, and is,here...

Let those with ears to hear....,hear.

Amen!