The Tale of Two Protest Requests: Reviewing 2020

The Tale of Two Protest Requests: 

Reviewing 2020

Did you ask or expect your pastor to protest something during 2020? 

I am an ordained pastor. In my tradition (white, evangelical, reformed) the advice has historically been that pastors do not get involved politically. We are encouraged to not preach or speak out in political ways. The people I grew up around did not protest. The world I was raised and trained in limited its politics to picking up a Christian Coalition voting guide off the literature table on the way out of the service. But I have noticed something interesting this year, members of that community calling for protest and resistance.

Recently on Facebook I stumbled across a comment on a thread where the writer self-disclosed that she was on her third church this year because she was sick of weak pastors who won't stand up to the government over mask-mandates and worship service restrictions. Her comments echoed others (though with much more church hopping/shopping) I've heard throughout the year calling for Christians to stand up and resist - or even defy - government advice on masks and/or in-person worship. I know from talking to colleagues that these sentiments have translated into requests (even pressure and threats in some cases) that pastors resist, defy or protest - even in the tradition I am a part of that tends to be anti-political in its stance.

Over the summer I was invited to join a group of pastors in my city who are seeking reconciliation, in part in response to the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd. That group, made up of African-American and White pastors, discussed the issue first separately and then together. In those conversations it became clear that the expectations for involvement in the issue of race/racism differed greatly in the two communities. What also became clear is that in the white churches there was not much (if any) expectation for pastors to protest on this issue.

Each winter as a year draws to a close we spend time reflecting on the past year. It is natural for humans to do this at the end of anything. 2020, unprecedentedly odd year, may have many not wanting to reflect, choosing rather to charge into 2021 with hope, however naive it might be. But I invite you to reflect on 2020 using the question I opened this blog with: Did you ask or expect your pastor to protest something during 2020?

If the answer is no, I invite you consider what it is about protesting that seems to not be part of the work of a pastor?  Further, what issue would be so important that you would expect your spiritual leader to, well, lead?

If the answer is yes, what did you expect or ask them to protest?

Did you want them to stand up for your right to not wear a mask?
Did you expect your religious leader to fight for your understanding of religious freedom?
Did you put pressure on your pastor to resist government overreach so you could go to church?

Did you ask your pastor to stand against the evil of racism?
Did you expect your spiritual leader to speak out against the freedoms (and lives) taken from others because of their skin color?
Did you put pressure on your pastor to lead in making sure that all people - created in the image of God - are being treated fairly?

During 2020 I suspect many folks in the spiritual tradition I am from protested for the first time. I also suspect that many expected the same from their spiritual leaders, also for the first time. First times, like the end of things, call us to reflect. If this year was your first protest, or call for a protest, what did you protest? What did you call for? Were you concerned about your own comfort, rights, and freedoms or the comfort, rights and freedom of others?

Jesus once said, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends" (John 15:13). As 2020 closes, my challenge is this, if the thing that caused you to cry out in protest for the first time was the protection of your rights, it might not be Jesus you are following/worshipping. If the thing you were pressuring your pastor to take a stand for was your comfort, rights and freedoms, and not the right for all people created in the image of God to experience the same comforts, rights, and freedoms, the thing you call "good news" may in fact be anything but.


Joel K


Photo Credits:

https://pixabay.com/photos/blm-black-lives-matter-protest-5267765/

Anti-mask protesters outside the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on July 18, 2020. (Jeff Dean/AFP via Getty Images) as it appeared at: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/29/both-republicans-and-democrats-cite-masks-as-a-negative-effect-of-covid-19-but-for-very-different-reasons/

 The Spirituality of Bird Feeders   

I haven't had a bird feeder in the yard for over a decade. I never put one up when I moved into my current neighborhood since they are only allowed during the winter.(1) I guess it seemed like too much of a hassle to put it up and take it down annually. A couple of weeks ago, I decided I'd like a bird feeder again.

Not having a feeder for so long was a mistake.

Everyday I wait to see the birds arrive. I find simple pleasure in watching them dive in to the feeder, perch, eat and flutter away. I find the uncomplicated practice of watching the birds calming, centering, and even a bit spiritual.

I am not alone. When I posted on Facebook about the simple pleasure of the birds there were a number of comments. One called the birds entertaining, and another referred to them as support animals. A friend confessed, "Got me through this entire year. Could watch all day" a statement underscored by the fact that the year he is is talking about is 2020 - a long hard year. It seems the birds a have some therapeutic or spiritual power.

The spiritual nature of birds should not have surprised me. The tradition I am a part of has birds in key stories. Noah learns the flood is over from a bird. During 40 years in the wilderness, God's people are sustained by quail. Elijah is kept alive during a long drought, in part, by ravens that feed him. Poets and prophets alike use images of birds all through the Old Testament. Jesus himself has a dove descend on him at this baptism and also uses birds to teach when he tells his listeners to "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them."

Here in Alaska the traditional stories also give a nod to the birds. In one understanding the raven creates the world. (2)

On a recent morning I stood looking out the window, cup of tea in hand, and my daughter commented to me "You have become Nana." It is true that in this area I have become my mother. My mother, in turn, has become her parents since they too fed the birds and enjoyed their company. It seems that this simple, spiritual ritual of offering a feast to the fowl is a family tradition.

So as 2020 slowly creeps to a close:

May we all find a simple daily ritual, like watching the birds, to center us. 

If you have a feeder, while you sustain the birds, may the birds sustain you as they did Elijah.

May the avian arrivers in all of our worlds remind us not to worry, just as they did Jesus' listeners. 

May we all stop, and enjoy the simple pleasure of the birds.

Joel K


Footnotes:

(1) This policy is in place to prevent attracting bears.

(2) Katharine Berry Johnson, Myths and Legends of Alaska (Chicago: AC McClurg & co., 1911), 17-32.

Jack White Says Everything on SNL

I missed it on the first pass. 

 

I was excited to see Jack White on Saturday Night Live last night.  However, when he started his first song, I just couldn’t place it.  It sounded great, but I didn’t know what song he was performing.  It turns out he was weaving three songs together.  While I had no idea what he was doing, White knew exactly what he was doing.

 

The first strand to be woven in was "Don't Hurt Yourself," a collaboration he did with Beyoncé for her album Lemonade.  White did a sight re-write, and opened the medley by singing,

 

            When you hurt me, your hurtin’ yourself

            When you lie to me, your lyin’ to yourself

           

            When you hurt me, your hurtin’ yourself

            When you love to me, your love to yourself.

 

The next two yarns woven in to the tapestry came together alternating between the "Ball and Biscuit" from his White Stripes days, and an old blues tune, “Jesus is Coming Soon,” made famous by Blind Willie Johnson.  Like a good folk singer White takes Johnson’s tune about the 1918 epidemic and brings it up to date:

 

        The nobles said to the people,

        You better close your public schools

        And until death passes ya by

        you better close all your churches too

 

        I done told ya,

        they done ya,

        God is comin' soon

 

        I done told ya,

        they done ya,

        The Lord is comin' soon

 

        Tell all the people to get up and get out

        (I’ll go out in the streets where) I can find a soap box where I can shout it

        To you

 

And

 

        The Great disease was mighty,

        And people were sick everywhere (2X)

        It was an epidemic, and it traveled through the air

 

Those lines were mixed in with the White Stripes lines,

 

        It's quite possible that I'm your third man, girl
        But it's a fact that I'm the seventh son

 

And

 

        Let's have a ball and a biscuit, sugar
        And take our sweet little time about it

 

It is hard to remove the performance from its context.  White was performing on two-day’s notice after the originally scheduled artist for the episode, Morgan Waller, was dismissed for not following COVID protocols, just a week after President Trump spent the weekend in the hospital with COVID-19.  Into this situation White chose to sing a song about how one persons actions affect those around them; brought a folk song about an epidemic 102 years ago up-to-date; and conjured up some possible responses to both.

 

In a week where both sides of the Vice Presidential debate accused the other of lying, officials obfuscated about the President’s health and the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak in the White House, and American’s are hurting and more divided than ever, the first words out of the mouth of Jack White were “When you hurt me, your hurtin’ yourself - When you lie to me, your lyin’ to yourself.”  Like a low-fi garage rock Mother Teresa, White’s lyrics reminded us that we are all connected and belong to each other. (1)  In this moment, as we villainize those on the opposite side of the political divide and see our daily relationships strained by the binary vitriol of a two-party system gone off the rails, Jack white was calling us to consider how are actions are affecting those around us.

 

After that reminder White notifies us that he’s the seventh son.  In the blues tradition the seventh son possesses special powers.  In this case White seems to be setting himself up as the one who is going to speak, and speak he does.  White climbs on his soap box and invoks the words of an old folk tune, and in doing so settles us into the historical context of the present moment.  Blind Willie Johnson was singing about the Spanish Flu and by connecting us to the history we are reminded that we’ve been here before.  In this way White offers a precious bit of perspective. 

 

But that is not the only perspective switch.  White takes it a step further.  Rather than being focused on what is closed - schools and churches – we are reminded that “God is comin' soon.”  Once again the seventh son is moving our focus.  This time we are not stepping back and looking at our place in history, but rather moving our eyes from the temporal to the eternal.  We are being asked to consider what really matters.

 

The final song offers us a chance to consider how we might respond to the moment we are in.  The lyric “Let's have a ball and a biscuit, sugar - And take our sweet little time about it” is open to interpretation.  One can see the lines as about cocaine (ball) and amphetamines / ecstasy (biscuit).  This is one way to respond to the COVID restrictions and political turmoil.  One could choose to numb the pain away. 

 

Another way to read the lyric is that a ball and a biscuit are symbolic of a performance transaction.  A dog chases a ball and is rewarded with a biscuit.  In this case the response might be to stop being played.  Are we the pawns of the politicians who promise us a biscuit if we just deliver, not a ball, but our vote?  Are we being manipulated on our social media platforms by being promised social interaction and information (as long as we give our data) just to end up being less informed and more divided? 

 

A third response is to see this line as about intimacy and connection.  Ball can be slang for sexual intercourse and biscuit could mean a meal.  What if White is again moving our perspective, from the great out there to the ones around us with whom we share our lives and meals?  What if we took “our sweet little time about it” with the people that mean the most to us?  What if we moved our eyes from politics and COVID to the loved ones we share our days with?   Maybe Jack White is asking us to consider these questions.  He is taking us full circle and asking us to consider how our lives and loves are interconnected -  “When you love to me, your love to yourself.”

 

That was just the first time Jack White took the stage Saturday night.  White’s second performance (with a nod to Eddie Van Halen) "Lazaretto" found him singing “When I say nothing, I say everything.”  Saying nothing was not Jack White’s problem on SNL.  He had a lot to say, and we’d be wise to take heed to all of it.

 

Joel K

 

 

Watch Jack White’s performance on SNL here:  https://www.npr.org/2020/10/11/922788708/jack-white-gives-a-thrilling-performance-on-snl-on-2-days-notice

 

 

Footnotes:

https://www.scu.edu/mcae/architects-of-peace/Teresa/essay.html

No Lives Matter

No Lives Matter

(Unless They Are White)

The assertion that "Black Lives Matter" by protestors has been responded to by some with the statement "All Lives Matter." While the statement "All Lives Matter" should be held by all as true (in particular anyone that chooses to wear the label "Pro-Life"), it is a current and historical reality that some lives do not matter as much as the lives of others. This reality is the lingering legacy of Colonialism. Colonialism was founded on the premise that No Lives Matter (unless you are white).


I recently listened to a podcast in which the guests were talking about the founding date of the United States. This may not seem like much of a show topic to many since the school system in the US pounds a founding date of 1776 into every pupils brain. The panelists on the podcast each offered alternative founding dates for the US. Nikole Hannah-Jones, the editor responsible for the New York Times 1619 project, put forth that date - the arrival of the first slave ship in what is the United States as the founding date. Historian Peter Linebaugh posited the date of 1792 which marks the establishment of an early form of global capitalism. Phillip Deloria stressed interactions between indigenous people in the Americas and Europeans in the 1600's, as well as Columbus' second voyage when he returned with human cargo to Europe for the purposes of slave trade, and the date of 1788 when Native Americans appeared in the constitution described as savages. Each of these dates is important in the development of the United States and in the creation of the moment we are in, but it is the "No Lives Matter" movement that makes it all those dates possible.


In the middle of the 1400's, as Europeans began to move around the globe, the Pope writes a number of bulls (a public statement or decree). These official statements of the Pope - who, at the time, clearly saw himself as the religious authority for the entire globe - creates the "No Lives Matter" movement. In those bulls (Romanus Pontifex & Dum Diversas in 1452 and Inter Cetera in 1493) the Pope grants permission for Europeans to "take possession” of any lands “discovered” that were “not under the dominion of any Christian rulers” (Newcomb 1992:18-20). Furthermore, he creates the "No Lives Matter" movement by encouraging those same explorers to:

"[I]nvade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery. (Indigenous Values Initiative 2018)"

  
Or in other words, "No Lives Matter" (unless you are European).

Mark Charles says of these Papal Bulls that they are,

"[The] Church in Europe telling the nations of Europe that wherever they go, whatever lands they find that are not ruled by Christian rulers, those people are less than human and the land is theirs for the taking. It is this doctrine that allowed European nations to colonize the continent of Africa and enslave the African people. It is also this Doctrine of Discovery that allowed Christopher Columbus, who was lost at sea, to land in a “new world” already inhabited by millions and claim to have “discovered” it. Common sense tells us you cannot discover lands that are already inhabited. (2016:149)" 

The roots of the "Black Lives Matter" movement lie in the historical reality that was created by the "No Lives Matter" movement that began with the Pope in the 1400's. The legacy of deciding that the only lives that matter are those of white Europeans is what we are seeing today in the protests in the streets. To say "All Lives Matter" in response to "Black Lives Matter" is to be ignorant, or to deny, the history leading up to this point that is built on a pervasive white supremacy - the belief that No Lives Matter (Unless They Are White).

Joel K


Works Cited:

Charles, M., 2016, ‘The doctrine of discovery, war, and the myth of America’, Leaven 24(3), 147-154.

Indigenous Values Initiative, 2018, Dum diversas, viewed 14 February 2019, from https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/dum-diversas/.

Newcomb, S., 1992, ‘Five hundred years of injustice’, Indigenous Law Institute, n.d., viewed 30 January 2019, from http://ili.nativeweb.org/sdrm_art.html.

Photo Credit:
https://sea.mashable.com/social-good/11261/12-free-and-printable-black-lives-matter-posters-from-black-artists

The Theology of Pandemic #8: Church Is Not Essential.

The Theology of Pandemic #8:
Church Is Not Essential 

Last week the President declared that churches are essential and that he would override Governors that kept them closed due to Covid-19 and order them open.(1)  With all due respect, I firmly disagree. Church is not essential.

Those that know me might be shocked by this statement. I pastor a church (2). My father is a pastor. I've gone to church my entire life. But I disagree with the president. Church is not essential.

My first objection is that President Trump seems to be of the understanding that churches stopped meeting during the pandemic and thus must be labeled as essential (like a business) and ordered to reopen.  This perspective is rooted in the belief that many hold (not just the Commander and Chief) that church is a gathering of people in a building on Sunday.  This understanding, rooted in physical space and time, could not be further from the truth. The church has never been primarily about a material structure or a certain type of meeting at a specific time. The church is much larger than that. The Apostles' Creed reads, in part, "I believe...in the Holy Catholic Church." My denomination (the Christian Reformed Church) places an asterisk behind the word Catholic and adds a foot note: "that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places." In this sense the church has not, and never will stop meeting because it is beyond time and space made up of all those who are seeking (or ever have) to follow the way of Jesus.  The church, at its core, is the living embodiment of all those seeking to live in the way of Jesus, and "churches" are the local expressions of that reality which goes far beyond the places they meet or the times they convene.

Second, the reality is that the church has not stopped meeting during Covid-19. Churches have shown an abundance of creativity in continuing to gather on Sunday's. Some have shifted to Zoom, or FB Live, other drive-in services and still others record services for distribution in other ways. Churches have done virtual communion or sacraments through windows. I heard of a pastor going to members houses one by one armed only with a chair so she could sit on the porch and talk to, and be with, each one. Priests have administered holy water with squirt guns (ok that one is a little out there).  Online small groups, classes, youth groups and more, have creatively moved into cyberspace, using what they have to do what they can to still be the church. Churches have housed the homeless, fed the poor, and continued the needed social services they provide.  The church has not stopped caring for its neighbors, seeking justice for the oppressed, praying, reading the Bible, listening to the Holy Spirit or any the other ways true followers of Jesus seek to follow his way. The churches don't need to be opened, because they never closed, and cannot ever close since the church is the people of God living the way of Jesus.

The reason that the church has been able to continue is the simple fact that time and place are not as important as presence and community. For example, all through the farewell discourse (John 14-17) with his disciples Jesus keeps telling them he is going away, but he doesn't leave them a building. He doesn't comfort them with a meeting time, a liturgy, or a song.  No Jesus promises a new presence - the Holy Spirit.  He keeps telling the disciples that he is in his father, and his father is in him, and he is in his followers.  The whole idea of indwelling is presence - God's presence among people and an invitation to join into the presence of the Trinity. This is where community comes in. At the the center of the universe is a loving relationship, the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who are dancing around love. Humans are invited into that dance, that presence, that community.  This joining into the dance of God is what a church is.  No virus can interrupt this dance!

Readers that know the Biblical text well might be objecting, "but it says in Hebrews 10:25, do 'not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.'" I think this gets back to what type of meeting we are talking about.  Believers should be in community with one another as the writer of Hebrews says, but I don't believe weekly church services are what the writer had in mind. Contemporary worship services are very music heavy, despite (if I remember correctly) the fact the gospels only record one instance of Jesus singing (Mark 14:26). While the Old Testament is loaded with songs and references to music and singing, the New Testament barely mentions it and spends a great deal of time encouraging follower of Jesus to pray.  My experience in the church today (particularly those with a contemporary style) is that prayer is often done to fill space or transition from one element to another in an effort to reduce the liturgy to six songs and a sermon. So maybe when we look at Hebrews 10:25, it would be good for us to back up and remember that the purpose for meeting in community as believers is not what we often think of as church - singing and sermons - but rather to "spur one another on toward love and good deeds." What is essential is not the weekly meeting (regardless of format), but the community encouraging each other to live in the way of Jesus.

My final argument that church is not essential is that there is no church in heavenly city at the end of time. In the vision of a restored world found in Revelation 21 we read, "I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple" (v.22). Henry Drummond titled his 1893 sermon on this passage, "The City Without a Church."  I agree with Drummond that in God's perfect city there is no church. That means that the church is not essential. Why, or how, can there be no church in the coming city of God? Revelation tells us it is because God is dwelling perfectly with his people. It seems we are back to those two essential things, community and presence. Maybe they are more than essential. Maybe the community of those seeking to follow the way of Jesus and experiencing the presence of God - the loving relationship/dance of the Trinity to which they have been invited - is elemental, something beyond essential.

Mr. President the weekly opening of the doors of a building is not essential.

President Trump the churches have not been, and cannot ever be, closed. 

God is dwelling with his people beyond all time and space, beyond buildings, and formats, and liturgies. Wherever there are true believers seeking to live the way of Jesus; anywhere a community is encouraging each other toward love and good works; anyplace the presence of God is being experienced and lived into, that is the church. The church has never been, and can never be, about a building, or a certain time, or a way of meeting, it is about presence and community.


Joel K

D.V.

Footnotes:

(1) Aside from the fact that the word essential has been overused and watered down in this pandemic, this assertion of the President raises all kinds of questions around states rights, separation of church and State (some outlets said the President was "ordering" churches to open), and how church can be seen as essential by someone that does not attend, etc.


(2) In the interest of full disclosure I must state that my congregation has met face to face in recent weeks. We have done this outdoors in a park, wearing masks, and spaced 6-10 feet apart. We are also have followed the State guidelines for group meeting size. We are a small congregation (30-40 on a Sunday) and are in a State that has had a rather low number of cases of Covid-19.

Works Cited:

Drummond, H., 2008, The city without a church, Wilder Publications, Radford.

The Theology of Pandemic #7: The DNA of the City

The Theology of Pandemic #7:  

The DNA of the City

A recent article in The Guardian (Shenker 2020) proposes that the urban world could be significantly different in the wake of Covid-19. That article notes the tension between densification, which is needed to create a more sustainable and energy efficient city, with the disaggregation needed to fight a pandemic. The article further notes migration. On one hand the "declining cost of distance" (Harris in Shenker 2020) in which work at home and work from a distance capability is allowing some to move out of the city to smaller communities, while in other places around the globe rural dwellers are becoming urban residents in large numbers. Other factors considered are an "intensification of digital infrastructure" (Shenker 2020) and an increase in authoritarianism. Elsewhere Daneshpour (2020) has called for a new kind of urban planning in the wake of this pandemic.

While cities will no doubt be affected long term by Covid-19 perhaps even changing the ways urban places are planned and organized, it is something in the DNA of cities themselves that has me wondering. Rocke and Van Dyke (2017:49) note that “Cities are transformed at the same level they are created. They are transformed relationally.” If we sit with that for just a moment one of the implications is that cities are an outgrowth of the human need to be together. Cities are relational in nature because we are relational creatures. Early in Genesis it is noted that it is not good for Adam to be alone, he needs another human (Gen. 2:18). Like Adam, we need other people.

If cities are relational then in this pandemic moment cities themselves could be seen as breaking down. If buried in the DNA of the urban world is the desire to be together the act of social isolation itself wars against that by placing all of us in isolation from one another. If cities are formed relationally, when we cannot relate does the city begin to break down?

It has long been noted that the density of cities does not always equal relational interactions. We can easily walk past the person experiencing homelessness on the street day after day and never know their name. We ride transit daily with people we do not know. We see people everywhere in a typical urban environment, but often do not have personal connection to more than a few. In the movie Crash Don Cheadle's character, Graham, expresses an extreme version of this isolation:

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

What if in this pandemic moment the relationality of the city is changing too? What if one of the changes that Covid-19 is bringing to the urban environment is a change in the way we interact in the city?

In that same article in The Guardian the author expresses that maybe the social isolation is not tearing the city apart, but bringing us closer together:

"On the ground, however, the story of coronavirus in many global cities has so far been very different. After decades of increasing atomisation, particularly among younger urban residents for whom the impossible cost of housing has made life both precarious and transient, the sudden proliferation of mutual aid groups – designed to provide community support for the most vulnerable during isolation – has brought neighbours together across age groups and demographic divides. Social distancing has, ironically, drawn some of us closer than ever before" (Shenker 2020).

Could it be that the DNA of the city - the relational nature of humans - is not sickened by Covid-19 but rather strengthened by it? Could the fact that we are all in this together - by the simple fact that we are all human, all God's children - be stronger than the social isolation? Could it be that the universality of this pandemic pushes us out of our isolation to a place where we learn the names and stories of those around us?  Can the concern over health bring us to a place where we have concern for our neighbors, and their wellbeing, even in times when we are not threatened by a common enemy?  Can the city be transformed relationally into something new in the wake of this Coronavirus?

Joel K

D.V.

Works Cited:

Daneshpour, Z.A., 2020. Out of the coronavirus crisis, a new kind of urban planning must be born. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zohreh_Daneshpour/publication/340491887_Out_of_the_coronavirus_crisis_a_new_kind_of_urban_planning_must_be_born_-_Post_pandemic_urban_and_regional_planning_and_the_lessons_that_can_be_learned_from_Coronavirus_pandemic_2020/links/5e8cbfe94585150839c779a0/Out-of-the-coronavirus-crisis-a-new-kind-of-urban-planning-must-be-born-Post-pandemic-urban-and-regional-planning-and-the-lessons-that-can-be-learned-from-Coronavirus-pandemic-2020.pdf

Rocke, K. & Van Dyke, J., 2017, Incarnational training framework: A training guide for
developing leaders engaged in city transformation, 2nd edn., Street Psalms Press, Tacoma.


Shenker, J., 2020, 'Cities after coronavirus: how Covid-19 could radically alter urban life.' 26 March, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/26/life-after-coronavirus-pandemic-change-world

It Comes at Night (A poem)

It Comes at Night (4.3.2020)

During the day I’m fine.

The numbers come out each eve.

Nighttime is the worst of every timeline.

I’d go, but no one can leave.

Another 10 or 20 Alaskans diagnosed.

Numbers added to the news where the national state is exposed.

I can feel it rising inside.

The anxious tightening of my chest.

My racing mind on a wild ride.

A bore tide wave that won’t crest.

The creeping onslaught of low level panic.

The dread that lays dormant while I work now becomes manic.

How long till it comes for someone I know?

My friends? My Family? Me?

These are the questions death doth bestow.

I pray in an attempt to be free.

But the not knowing just wont let me rest.

Living day-to-day, day-after-day, is hard, but best.

We are instructed to stay if not essential.

We are told to ‘bend the curve.’

But my thoughts leave on journeys tangential,

careening around swerve upon swerve.

Is this what it felt like back in 1918,

wondering when a normal life could reconvene?


- Joel K

D.V.