Coronavirus: "Don't put off 'til tomorrow what you can do today"

How many times did my parents suggest that I attend to today's chores today?  Millions.  I was and remain a procrastinator, but that sneaky sort of person, always busy and so seemingly perfectly justified that I can't get it all done.  Of course, I'm busy with the work I like, while the work I dislike languishes on my desk.

This has caught up with me. That my washing machine was not functioning properly didn't matter for long time because I could take the clothes around the corner to laundromat.  Now I'm caught in my house -- I mean safely sheltering in place -- with a washing machine that has to be coaxed to do its job.  And you would think I've learned my lesson, but no, there's still work I don't want to do and that isn't getting done as promptly as it should.

I raise this issue here because it seems to me that pretty much everybody in the world is facing this problem. We have to change the way we live to avoid mass extinction, possibly including our own species, and it is actually something we can't put off.  I read in The New York Times about a study of the risks we face from climate change.  If we hit the fateful increase of two degrees centigrade, we could face a sudden catastrophic loss of species that form our ecosystem, possibly including our own.  Reporting on a study that appeared in the scientific journal Nature, the Times article said:

The study predicted that large swaths of ecosystems would falter in waves, creating sudden die-offs that would be catastrophic not only for wildlife, but for the humans who depend on [them].

"For a long time things can seem OK and then suddenly they're not," said Alex L. Pigot, a scientist at University College London and one of the study's authors. "Then, it's too late to do anything about it because you've already fallen over this cliff edge."

This is my experience of tolerating a dysfunctional washing machine.  It was fine until suddenly it wasn't and I couldn't do anything to fix it.  While the problem of my washing machine is not threatening my life, our collective threat to the world-as-we-know-it is a threat to you and me and all seven billion of us humans and gadzillions of other living beings.

The coronavirus that we're grappling with is a both a warning of troubles to come and a roadmap for the changes we can make and what will happen if we do.  In this short time of human retreat. BBC reported, animals have started to embrace more parts of the world and the skies and waters have become clear.  Our changes have had a rapid and positive impact on the state of the ecosystem.

I have learned how optional much of the busy-ness of my life was and that I could make do with much, much less. Yesterday I planned to record a lesson on making brownies for the University of Orange Digital Campus.  When I pulled out the box, I found it contained only one egg.  I thought, "There has to be a substitute for eggs on the internet."  I found that the small amount of applesauce in my frig was a perfect replacement for the other egg.  The brownies were not quite the same, but they proved the point that I could make do with what I had.

In this regard, one of the greatest things that's happened to me is that Amazon Prime is not one day delivery.  In fact, who knows how many days Amazon will be.  That leaves plenty of time to look around and find alternatives.  The other great thing is that conferences and conventions are canceled and I don't have to fly here and there.  I can sit in my house and join meetings by Zoom.  That frees up time to spend watching the happy animals frolicking in my backyard.  The squirrels in particular are getting so fat because they don't have to scurry off every time people come!

In this sudden break, I have gotten to see that the way my life was woven into the world contributed to the intolerable burden humans place on the ecosystem.  I have been forced to live more mindfully for now. but what will happen when the all-clear sounds?  The temptation will be to forget that this ever happened and to act as if my old life were acceptable.  But my old life, which depended on excess consumption of many, many things, contributed to looming catastrophe.  Better to change and avoid the cliff's edge of our species and all others!

Resisting the status quo will take backbone.  The other thing I've seen in this period is great courage, not only the sublime courage of the essential workers, but also the bravery of leaders who showed the way forward.  I am reminded of the photo of healthcare executive Bruce Greenstein who offered an elbow to Donald Trump, rather than shake his hand.  What role models these people have been!  The pathmakers of ecological respect will be the ones to watch for in the months to come.

Reverend Cynthia Bourgeault pointed out that the word "courage" comes from the French, coeur, which means "heart."  She said that it is the clarity that we get from love that gives us the strength to do what we have to do.  As one of the tasks of getting through this moment in time, my colleagues Lourdes Rodriguez, Nupur Chaudhury and I suggested that we needed to "turn on the love."  It now seems even more useful, as the more love we feel now, the more courage we'll have to turn away from the status quo towards a new way of life, in harmony with the Earth.  I put this sign on my door and in my yard to remind passersby and me of that great truth!

Coronavirus: Grassroots public health

There have been two recent images in the New York Times that capture a crucial aspect of what is going on in the US as we struggle to respond to the novel coronavirus, COVID19.  In the first, health care executive Bruce Greenstein replies with an elbow to Donald Trump's offer of a handshake.  Trump has been shaking hands with lots of people, including some who have been found to be infected.  Greenstein demonstrated in that moment, caught in this dazzling photo, enormous self-possession -- exactly what it takes to enact social distancing when it has not been endorsed by the hierarchy.

That's where we all were a week ago, feeling slightly awkward about refraining from a handshake.  But a week has passed and something has happened in society. In the second image, a Times' graphic listed events canceled and places closed.  These include: the NBA season, SouthxSouthwest and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In the terrifying absence of sane national leadership, a grassroots public health response has surged. If social distance was what could help flatten the curve, and dampen the epidemic, every organization had the possibility of enacting that: WE COULD CANCEL EVERYTHING.  By Friday, major colleges and universities had sent their students home for the duration, large gatherings (however, you define that) had been called off, and Zoom chic had become the new black (cute top, cool headset, modeled here by my goddaughter, Gahlia Eden).

I know a lot about grassroots public health because I started my research career in San Francisco in 1986, looking at AIDS in black and Hispanic communities.  The activism of the gay community created the essential push on the government to get an epidemic response moving.  I am not surprised to see veterans of that era in the forefront of response to this pandemic, Gregg Gonsalves among them.  Many others are stepping up as well.  In my own email has come news from the presidents of UU congregations in my district about going online for services, foundations' reassurances to grantees, public health leaders' communications of reliable information and demands for care for the vulnerable.  Most important of all, in my view, has been the updates from the Poor People's Campaign, mobilizing efforts to ensure a response to the epidemic that includes all the people.

Here is what has been surprising to me: It is evident that this grassroots public health comes from LOVE, in the way Rev Dr. Martin Luther King taught us. There is profound concern for neighbors and strangers.  While we see videos of people, in their fear, fighting over the last pack of toilet paper, what is happening in this broad mass enactment of public health is LOVE.  It is a powerful motivator in this moment when we are left to our own devices to make the best of what we have.

The many expressions of this LOVE have been touching.  Here is one message from a friend.