You Choose

It’s Thursday, another day in our new reality. I find myself hyper vigilant. Last night my throat felt scratchy and I began assessing myself. Did I feel sick? Was I short of breath? Did I feel feverish? No, no and no. About 20 minutes later the sore throat went away. Just a momentary thing, but for those twenty minutes I worried I might have contracted COVID-19. I worried I might have given it to others. When I realized the sore throat was probably just from allergies, because it subsided when the zyrtec kicked, in I felt some relief. Yet, I still feel the pain of those who are dying from this virus, the pain of their loved ones. If you haven’t yet taken this seriously, now is the time. Now is beyond time. Physically distance yourself from others.

Yesterday I saw a group of eight teens playing basketball in the park, standing close together, handling the same ball, sharing the same bottle of gatorade. If one of those teens was positive for COVID-19, it could be catastrophic. COVID-19, contrary to what some media outlets and some public figures are saying, is much more contagious than influenza. One person can infect three other people. If you add that up, in just ten generations of replication, that one person can lead to the infection of more than 29,000 people. That’s just one person spreading the virus. Now multiply that by the tens of millions who may have this virus, but don’t have symptoms and can spread it to others. Now do you understand why it’s important to distance yourself?

Still don’t get it? Well, when COVID-19 cases swamp emergency departments and hospitals, leading to a shortage of beds and ventilators, it’s not just people with COVID-19 who will die. It’s people with other illnesses who can’t get care, because the hospital is full of people with the virus. It’s people who can’t get surgery for cancer and cardiac conditions, because surgical wards have been turned into virus isolation wards. It’s people who can’t get an ambulance fast enough, because they’re busy tending to people with the virus. It’s people who will die, because front line medical staff are getting this virus and are sidelined until they are well. Today it might be random numbers on the news. Tomorrow it might be someone you know who is affected by this. It might be you.

Still don’t get it? Then there probably is no hope for you.

If you do get it, there is a lot you can do while you’re being physically distant from others. You can still get outside, go for walks, run, hike, plant flowers, mow your lawn, pull weeds, sit by a creek, read a book, fly a kite, throw a ball for your dog.

We are in this together. We will rise or fall together. You get to make the choice. Do you want to contribute to our rise or our fall?

Still Be Kind

Greetings Beloveds. It’s Wednesday, day I don’t know what of physical distancing. I’m excited to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s new book, Love in the time of Corona. But, seriously, it’s hard in times like these to find humor. Find laughs where you can. I was reminded of this last night when our Improv team got together via zoom. It felt so good to connect and laugh. It felt good to remember we really are in this together and to know others are in this with me.

I’m so proud to live in Kentucky right now. Our governor has been a model of good leadership in a time of crisis. Currently, our Republican majority legislature is trying to push through legislation that would strip the governor’s ability to be in charge during an emergency. This is heinous.

While all of this chaos and uncertainty is going on, continue paying attention to what else is happening in the world. With people like Glenn Beck saying older people should work and younger people should stay home so the old die instead of the young, it’s more important than ever that we use common sense. Work toward the good. Be the example. What is it you want people 100 years from now to read about us in history books? Go back and read about how we responded to the 1918 influenza pandemic, to cholera, to all the other epidemics and pandemics.

Be kind, be an example, love others, think about others, think about humanity as a whole. Be kind, be an example, love others. Reach out to people you know. Be kind, be an example, love others.

It’s Your Choice

Tuesday. Another day in the new reality of our lives. My random thoughts for today have to do with selfishness vs. altruism. Altruism requires thinking of others, thinking of how our individual actions affect the whole and requires remembering that what each one of us does affects countless others in unknown ways.

I once gave a talk titled, “Unintended Consequences and Cascading Casualties” that focused on unethical things anthropologists have done in the name of research, because they believed to do otherwise would jeopardize their research. So, they behaved unethically, without thought for others, because they were trying to advance their own aims. That is the hallmark of selfishness. In some cases, the consequences were benign, in others they were deadly. Right now, being selfish will kill others, potentially lots of others.

The more research that comes out, the more it is apparent that you can transmit COVID-19 before you have symptoms, and the CDC report on one of the first cruise ships to be hit, indicated that 18% of people who tested positive on that ship never had symptoms. So, they could be merrily transmitting that virus to others if they weren’t quarantined.

Those of you who think this is a joke, or who don’t care because you think even if you get it, it won’t be serious, stop a moment and think about how it will feel to have your spouse, your sibling, your friend, your parent, grandparent, neighbor, co-worker, die. Think about the fact that for many of these people it will be an unpleasant death in a hospital, not surrounded by loved ones; no funeral, no shared grieving.

Still don’t care because you’re healthy, young and carefree? Well, 40% of hospitalized people are younger than 54. Now think about the fact that if we don’t continue to do what we’re doing hospitals will be overwhelmed, and there are already medical ethics papers being published in peer reviewed journals talking about what will happen if we run short of ventilators. Likely those who are older, who have pre-existing conditions and the disabled will go to the back of the line. Decisions will be made based on who has more theoretical life years and who will cost less and use fewer resources. Are you ok with your Mamaw or Papaw being left to die? Are you ok with your friend with MS being left to die? Are you ok with your neighbor with COPD being left to die? Be honest with yourself. The man in the white house and the Lieutenant Governor of Texas seem to be okay with that. The people crowding the beaches in Florida, California and Hawaii seem to be okay with that.

In all likelihood, I am one of those people who would be left to die. I am 59, I have chronic asthma and fixed airway obstruction as a result of the asthma. Why give me a ventilator when you can give it to a 29 year old who doesn’t have any pre-existing conditions?

Trust me this virus will affect you. Either you will get it or someone you know will get it. Chances are good someone you know will die from it. The choices we make now as individuals, as communities and as a nation will determine how many of us have to die. What is your choice?

Feel It

Hello Monday. More states issuing stay at home orders. In Kentucky, all non-essential businesses must close by 8:00 PM tonight. My feelings are all over the place, a mixture of helpless, panicking, feeling hopeful, worrying about friends and family, being calmed by our governor, grateful for good friends we can connect with via video chat, angry with people who don’t seem to take this seriously and who don’t seem to care about anyone but themselves. Intellectually I know there is an end to the tunnel, but my heart can’t quite grasp that.

 

What helps me now is turning to the calming practices I know, deep breathing, meditation, talking to my loved ones, looking for the good and for the people helping other people. I come back again and again to other periods in history with pandemics and to all of those there was an after, life went on.

 

Today, I encourage you not to tamp down any feelings. Feel them all. Whatever you are feeling is ok. Know what’s going on, but limit your exposure to news so that you don’t feel overwhelmed. Reach out to friends and neighbors and share you love (from a safe physical distance). Know there are others who can stand in the gap for you, just as you can stand in the gap for them. We will get through this together. Be kind, be gentle.

You Are the Most Beloved

Hello Friday. Here in Lexington, it’s alternating between rain and sun. The wind is blowing, the streets are eerily quiet, life has slowed down. The forsythia bushes in the back yard are in full bloom, the bushes along the creek are leafing out, the buds on the trees are swelling, the birds are singing their springtime songs. Life goes on all around us.

 

If you are at home due to a 14 day quarantine, mandatory social distancing or a shelter in place order take time to notice spring happening all around you. It’s easy to become so panicked that you fail to notice anything. Stop, breathe, look around, notice something you can see, something you can hear, something you can smell, something you can feel. Come into this present moment. Come back to your breath. If you are allowed to go outside, get outside, even if it’s just for a few moments. Look at the sky, the trees, at flowers blooming.

 

Today, think of five things you’re grateful for. Today, send notes of appreciation via e-mail to five people. Today find a way to turn off the news for a while and watch or read something that takes you to another place. This is a marathon, rest where you can, continue at a slow and steady pace; there is no need to sprint.

 

Let’s all take care of each other. What if we treated this as if everyone on the planet was our most beloved? It would be easy then to help keep others safe. The truth is everyone on the planet is the most beloved to someone.

Look for the light

Hello Wednesday. Another day of uncertainty as this virus has its way with us. It’s amazing to me that some people are more focused on blame than solutions, more focused on judgment than compassion, more focused on I’ve got mine, screw you, than generosity.

 

What I know is that in this time of suffering and confusion there are bright lights. I choose to stay informed and focus on the bright lights. I focus on the fact that our governor is holding a daily briefing geared toward children to alleviate their fears. I focus on the fact that our sheriff’s department is willing to get medicine and food for older people and will do welfare checks. I’m focusing on the ways people are coming together, reaching out and helping each other.

 

Today, what is one thing you can do to bring light to the world? It doesn’t have to be some grand gesture, just a small thing. How can you stand in the gap for someone else right now? As the governor of Kentucky keeps saying, we’re all in this together.

 

Know that you are loved, that you are cared for. Know that we will get through this together.

A Marathon

Good morning Tuesday. As we remain in uncharted territory, hold on to your compass. Take a moment today to think about your compass. What guides you in times of trouble? What practices do you have that help you when you feel squirrly, scared, sad, mad? Who do you turn to for support and love?

Today take time to reach out to those who might be isolated, scared, sad. We might not be able to congregate, but we can connect by phone, video, social media, e-mail, snail mail.

Exercise your thinking-about-othe- people muscles today. It’s easy to become numbed by statistics about the numbers of people who have the virus and by the numbers of people who have died. Remeber those numbers represent real, flesh and blood people. People with siblings, parents, children, close and distant relatives, friends, lovers, neighbors, co-workers. People grieving loved ones who have died. People rejoicing over loved ones who have recovered. People, real people.

We are in this together. Viruses, contrary to what some people are saying, do not have a nationality. They are equal opportunity organisms, and they are proof that we all inter-are, because viruses require a host to reproduce and survive. Viruses have been around a very long time. A 2016 article in Cell Magazine indicates that between 40 and 80 percent of the human genome is the result of “archaic viral invasion.” So, don’t demonize the virus. It just is, it’s doing its virus thing. As humans we don’t like what it does to us, but that doesn’t make the virus evil, foreign, an illusion or any of the other things people are calling this virus. It just is.

Instead of focusing on where the virus came from, focus on how you can respond. How can you respond with love today? How can you think about and help others today? How can you help yourself today? How can you prepare and take precautions without panicking? This will not be over in days or weeks, we are in for some long term changes in how we live our lives. This is a marathon, not a sprint, pace yourselves accordingly. And, remember, love, love, love one another. We are all in this together and together we will make it through.

Love is still the answer

Greetings Beloveds. We are still in the midst of the unknown. Here, in Kentucky, the governor has ordered all restaurants and bars to close. He keeps reiterating that we are all in this together and that’s what we have to remember. Even if you are young, healthy and don’t think this virus will affect you very much, you do know someone who is high risk. Whether it’s a friend, family member, co-worker or neighbor someone with whom you interact is either over the age of 60, is immune compromised, or has an underlying illness that makes them more susceptible.

 

Now is the time to act like you care more about others than yourself. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said it well. He argues that we can’t act like we are worried about contracting this virus, we have to act as if we already have it and we’re doing what we can to stop others from getting it. More and more evidence shows that people who have the virus, but who have not yet shown symptoms are contagious.

 

Now, is not the time to panic, but it is the time to be prudent, to think about others. We will rise or fall together, as a community, as a city, as a state, as a nation as the globabl community. Now, more than ever we realize we’re all connected.

 

When in doubt, come from love. Remember that many people are scared, if not panicked, and may respond to you out of that panic. The best response you can have is not to elevate that panic, but rather to be a calm presence. If you are feeling scared reach out to those who can support you, but who won’t try to minimize or deflect your feelings.

 

Know that the world has been through this before and we have come through it, whether it was the plague, the 1918 influenza pandemic, repeated cholera epidemcis in the 1800s, polio, ebola or COVID-19, we have come through all of them. We will come through this too. Life may be forever changed, but we will come through this. You get to decide if you want to be a part of helping yourself and others come through with kindness and compassion.

 

Today, love, love, love yourself and others. Be kind, be compassionate. Only get your information from reliable sources. Know that I am here to support you.

Today, Focus on Love

Good morning, Sunday. As we awaken to a new day in our new normal, I invite you to greet this day with love. Yes, it’s okay to be scared, it’s okay to feel whatever you feel. Don’t supress or deny your feelings, but do what you can to also focus on love. What is it that makes you feel loved? If you can’t reach out and touch a loved one, call them, video chat with them. Write an old-fashioned letter.

Take time today to simply breathe. Close your eyes, breathe in and breathe out. Find a silly show to watch on Netflix or Youtube. This is not a situation that is going to resolve in the near term, so prepare yourself physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally for extended distancing and, possible isolation. Think of your animals as well. If they use medication, get an extra month’s supply from you vet. Make sure you have plenty of pet food on hand.

Again, I’ll keep saying this, check on your neighbors, especially people who live alone. Give thanks for all those on the front lines of the pandemic–the scientists, doctors, nurses, techs, EMS people, firefighters, police officers. Those who can’t take time off and practice social distancing. They are risking their lives to help us. As the governor of Kentucky said about our state, “It’s team Kentucky against the virus.” We’re in this together.

Today focus on positive stories coming out of this, the places where people are doing good, rather than stories about people misbehaving. Unite, love, be kind.

You Can’t Hack Life

Life hacking, tidying up, minimalism, guaranteed to make you more efficient, happier, more fulfilled, sexier, healthier, more productive, and did I mention sexier? These are the latest iterations of the self-help trend. Do this and you’ll find the secret to life. No, do this instead and find the secret to life faster and easier. No, wait, do this and find the secret to life even faster and easier.

What all of these things have in common is the notion that there is a fast, easy fix to this complex, messy, complicated thing we call life. We are so afraid of living authetically and of trusting our own inner knowingness that we constantly search for something, anything, to free us from the trap of our minds.
But, here’s the thing, those things we use to free ourselves often become traps (Ram Dass addresses this brilliantly in Journey of Awakening).

Marie Kondo advocates tidying up and getting rid of anything that doesn’t “spark joy. I know people who have tidied up their lives according to Marie Kondo principles who then become obsessed with not owning and set themselves up as superior to those who own more. In the meantime, nothing sparks joy because the value of everything has to be calculated to make sure it sparks joy.

Life hacking is the notion, taken from high-tech, that we can create life shortcuts to make our lives more efficient to free us up to do more stuff. The thing with this is that many people spend so much time figuring out ways to hack their lives, they never actually do anything. Additionally, it perpetuates the myth that there is an easy fix to what ails us mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically.

Minimalism shares similarities with tidying up in that it espouses owning only what is absolutely necessary for living. There are people who argue you should never own more than one hundred things. Again, people obsess over what those things should be and fill their time with cataloging what they have and what they’ve given up.

Here’s the real secret to life; there is no secret. Life is meant to be lived fully, messily, with complications, with ups and downs, with good days and bad, with wellness and illness. All of it is part of the human experience. We run into trouble, because we believe if we find the secret we’ll stop having the human experiences we don’t like. Then when we continue having those experiences, rather than realizing this is part of being human, we search for the next fix; we tidy up, walk on hot coals, break boards, throw out all but a hundred things, make sure we never have more than ten emails in our in-box, get rid of “toxic” people, walk on more hot coals, go to workshops, read books (which we then have to get rid of so we don’t own more than the allowed amount). Then we find that we’re still irredeemably human. Messy, complicated, complex.

The secret to life is there is no secret. Just live. Be the big, beautiful, messy person you are.