Bailing with Thimbles

What would we say to you, if we could find the words?

It's not easy to say its name. No, not COVID. That's become much to easy to speak. I'm talking about Fear. It never really goes away. It doesn't paralyze me, but it catches me up a few times every day. A passing smile. A masked laugh. The brush of elbows or the bump of fists. Most of all, when I am doing my most important job: when I am moving through the Y, spray bottle and towel in hand, cleaning and wiping down the equipment. What if I come in contact? What if I carry it to someone I love? What if another person dies because I was just not careful enough? Its name is Fear. And I am afraid for you.

Yesterday, I realized that I've been becoming more distant at work. I am usually a hugger. The warm smile, the booming welcome, the comfortable embrace: those are what I do best. And the virus has taken all that away. I don't want to get too close, especially to strangers. I might have it, or they might. The thing might use me to transport and spread it every time I breathe or touch another person or another piece of equipment. 

There are people I love so much whom I've kept away from. Family. Friends. I encounter hundreds of people every day. I am a risky person to be around. I have the bravado of a cancer warrior. I am genuinely not afraid of any sickness or infection. I've already whipped the biggest of them. I don't fear for myself, but I'm not willing to gamble with the health and lives of the ones who mean so much to my heart.

I wonder about the other warriors. The cops who responded the night my security alarm went off while I was out walking because I didn't set it properly. The ladies at the gas station and the grocery store who keep me in caffeine and fresh produce. The people stocking shelves at Wal-mart and Target. And those angels in blue plastic smocks and clear face shields who do their best to bring comfort through rubber gloves to the sick and the dying. I'm sure they know the fear, too. The fear of getting sick, yes, but also the fear of hurting their kids or parents or lovers or anyone else who might catch the damned thing because a stranger chose to ignore the consequences of indifference. I know it doesn't paralyze them either. But I wonder how it has changed them. I wonder if they have the words.

"I want you to know how much I love you. How much I miss you. How much I want to fold you to my breast and weep into one another's hearts. I don't feel like a hero. I feel like a round peg in a dangerously square hole, totally unprepared for all this, and I'm doing my best to help without hurting anybody else. I stay away because I love you, and that's the opposite of everything my soul cries out for me to do. But today, I can't trust my feelings. My mind has to win this argument. Every damn time.

"Please know that I'm doing the best I know how. For you. For myself. For all of us. The hurt of separation and the fear of losing you makes me want to run and hide sometimes, and sometimes I do. I sit alone in my chair or my room or my office and I pray that I haven't killed anyone today. I pray every time the phone rings: 'Dear God, don't let it be news of another death.'

"The little I can do seems so meaningless in the face of so much loss and sadness. But it's all I can do. And I want you to know I'm doing all I can to bail the flood waters back into the river, one thimble full at a time. And I'm determined to keep bailing till my arms stop working. I hope you know that. I wonder how often you feel afraid, just like I do. And I hope you're bailing too."

That's what we would say to you, If we could just see your face and touch your hand again. 

But I am too risky to be around. So all I have are the words. 

Tiny thimbles full of my love for you. They won't satisfy either of our thirsty spirits. But please, take and taste them. For now, they are all I have to offer you.

Call him Gideon

Love in the Time of Corona #8

For the last 10 weeks, I have had the honor of serving the families of essential workers by helping the YMCA provide emergency child care to hospitals, first responders, the VA, public transit personnel, and other people who had to be in harm’s way during the stay-at-home phase of Kentucky’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As I met the kids, I noticed right away how many of them had names from the Old Testament. In the last few days, I’ve been watching parts of my nation burn, once again placing many of those same families in harm’s way. Today, on the Feast of Pentecost, I woke with all of that knocking around in my brain.  I want to tell you some of their stories, but to honor their privacy, I’ll create a composite and choose a name that wasn’t on the roster. 

Call him Gideon.

I heard him before I saw him. He was crying, sitting in the lobby where the children who misbehaved in their groups were sent to be punished and cool down. “Time out,” I guess. Any engagement with him was met with argument and protestations of innocence. I heard the theatrical howling and imagined the crocodile tears. Later, I heard what would be a recurring theme. “Gideon is terrible. He’s a bad kid.”

During the first few weeks, before the Commonwealth closed the pools, I was the lifeguard. It was chaos. I’m very inexperienced in the chair, and found it more stressful than I could have imagined. Ideally, the guard’s job is to anticipate, prevent, and if necessary, respond to emergencies. It quickly became apparent that my job was going to be making sure none of these children killed each other. 

Gideon loved to jump. He was stronger, bigger, and more acrobatic than the other kids, and he loved to test the boundaries of what was permitted in the pool. They were not allowed to dive in the shallow water, so he would do summersaults in the air, landing feet first. They weren’t allowed to jump backwards, so he would leap high out and twist 180º. His worst habit was one that seemed almost unconscious. He always jumped toward the other kids. I tried calling him out, reasoning with him, making him sit out for 5, 10, 20 minutes. He would behave well for a few seconds, and then return to the very things he’d been punished before. It was almost compulsive with him. 

He loved to throw things. Hard. Sometimes across the pool. Sometimes at kid’s heads. I sometimes worried that I might miss a kid in trouble in the water because I had to pay so much attention to this one incorrigible child. One day, one of his good days, he made it all the way to the end of the hour without any misbehavior. I was really proud of him. I tooted my whistle and told the group to gather up the toys and return them to the basket where they were kept so that the next group could come in. Gideon dove to the bottom easily, retrieved a plastic diving stick, and whipped it across the pool, toward the basket, accidentally hitting a teacher square in the side of the head. She knew who had thrown it before even looking. With a sharp voice, she told Gideon that he would be sitting out the swimming hour the next day. Howling. Tears. 

The next day, he started the hour in street clothes, pouting on a bench in the corner. The teacher he had hit sat about 10 yards away, keeping an eye on him, and scolding him from time to time. I scanned the pool, watching for trouble. 5 minutes into the hour, I looked over and Gideon was lying on her bench, his head in her lap, while she stroked his hair with her soft, brown fingers. Each time my head turned their way, I saw this angry black boy being loved on by a woman who had watched and wept over many others like him. After the hour, I joked, “I think Gideon only acts up so he can have somebody love on him.” 

“Of course, he does,” she answered with kindness and patience. This old white man had a lot to learn about being a little black boy.

Once, I was called to the conference room. “I need to leave for a few minutes. Will you sit with Gideon? He hit one of the other kids and he won’t be going back to his group for the rest of the day.” 

We sat quietly for a minute, then I asked, “What’s going on, man?” Tears. Howling. The teacher hated him. He was just playing. He didn’t mean to hit anyone.”

“How did it happen, Gideon?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I just have to hit someone. What am I supposed to do?”

“Well,” I tried. "Maybe you could find another way to use that energy."

“But I just have to hit sometimes. Don’t you?”

I didn’t know what to tell him. I could not imagine what could make an 8 year old child this full of rage. I don’t know when I’ve felt so helpless and ignorant.

Later, one of the more experienced teachers told me, “He was playing you. I could see it from a mile away.” Was she being callous? Jaded? Was she too busy to take the time to help the boy? Or was she right? Was he just playing me, telling me things that would get my soft old heart on his side? I’m still not sure if I know.

Sometimes, Gideon would run to me in the morning, throwing his arms around my legs in a bear hug. “Hi, Mr. Bob.” Other times he would be surly, angry and sulking over his latest scolding. Correcting him might result in tears, or it might send him slamming through the door and out into the hall, alone. 

“Gideon, what are you doing out here without a grown-up?” 

“I hate her. She hates me. It’s not fair.” Then he would stomp off in whatever direction necessitated the longest chase.

There were other kids who acted out. Rebecca was almost aggressive in the way the would pee her pants. Staring defiantly at the adult who had failed to recognize the warning signs as the urine flowed down her legs, soaking her shoes. Ezekiel was punished almost daily for hitting, grabbing, or kicking. He was finally banned from the program the day he stabbed another child with a pencil. Esau tormented and fought with his brother Jacob constantly. Their dad just sighed and shook his weary head after another long day’s work. 

Ruth and Naomi were sisters who would not stop touching one another in inappropriate and what I thought were really disturbing ways. 

“Is that a red flag?” I asked a more experienced teacher. “Should we do something about that?” 

“They’re fine,” was the answer. I deferred to her expertise, but am still not sure if I did the right thing.

Gideon’s final straw came when, at the end of a class session, he was told to put his toys away. Furious, he grabbed one and threw it into one of the large mirrors on the wall of what is normally an exercise studio. The mirror broke. Had it been a young skull instead, we would have been sending a child to the hospital. Gideon was suspended for 12 months. No child care. No summer camp. No after school care. His granny was called to come pick him up, but she could not leave the hospital without losing her job, so Gideon sat at a table the lobby for the next 6 hours. Waiting.

It broke my heart. I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept waking up, imagining the things that could happen to him on the street. Wondering what I could have done differently. What should I have said? Not said? Did I spend enough time with him? Did I over indulge him? Did I have any business being around these children at all? And how did this little boy get so god damned angry?

A teacher who knew him well told me some things I didn’t know. Gideon’s mom had been trapped in an abusive relationship with his dad. She was also an addict. When she finally found the courage to escape, she refused to move back to her parent’s home. So she and Gideon spent a year living in her car. God only knows what that boy saw and did over those months. When his grandparents finally learned where their daughter and grandbaby were, they sued and were granted custody of the child. They are loving, hard-working people, but so much damage had been done. No wonder my little sermons had no effect. What words could heal a soul that had been that battered?

I missed my grown-ups. There are things in this world that are much more terrible than cancer. And I do not have the tools to help heal them. I remembered something my ex wife used to say about social work. “We can’t save them all. But we can love them all.” That, I could do. For what it was worth.

Last week, I learned that I would be transitioning to new responsibilities when the Y re-opens on June 1. Predictably, I started getting sentimental about the kids. For 10 weeks, they had driven me crazy. Now I began to think about how much I was going to miss them. 

On Wednesday, I walked into the gym. Ostensibly, my morning visits were to check in and see if the teachers needed anything. But the truth is, I just liked hearing the kids shout, “Mr Bob!” I wasn’t one of the teachers. I was the fun uncle who comes to visit and plays kickball with you, before sending you back to the people who have to make you behave the rest of the day. So they love me.

In the corner, all alone, coloring, I saw Gideon. The Big Boss had given him another chance. No one else would have dared to. I waked to him. He glanced up, but didn’t acknowledge me. I gave him a hug, and whispered, “Welcome home, little brother. I missed you.” He hugged me back. Tentatively. Silently. I waited for him to give me his eyes. “Be your best, Gideon. I believe in you. Be your best.”

I went and found the Boss. “Thank you. For Gideon.”

“You’re welcome.” I knew she hadn’t done it for me. But she knew how much he had meant to me. I would walk through fire for that woman.

Gideon had a pretty good week. He hadn’t miraculously transformed, but he softened his behavior. He made it to Friday without being sent to the office. 

And I came home to prepare for my return to the adult world. You know, the one where old people break their hips and young people have strokes an everybody gets cancer and people are murdered on the street and angry crowds set fire to police stations. 

I think of all the old white people trying to reason this out. Talking about how the rioters are just bad, how they need to find another way, how they are hurting the very people and places that they need. And I think about Gideon. An African-American boy with a life I can never imagine and a rage burning inside that I will never be able to feel. I pray that God will protect him from the evil killers on the street. I pray that someone will be able to love him in a way that I could not. I pray that nothing I said or did made things any worse for him. Because, I don’t know what will happen the next time he acts out.

But I do know that when he is old enough, he will experience injustice. He will feel racism’s knee on his neck. And he will want to hit someone. Please, sweet Jesus, keep him safe. I love him. But I can’t save him. Please, save him.

... And It Shows

Love in the Time of Corona #7

Some of you have never watched someone you love die of respiratory disease.

Some of you have never been awake at 3:30 on Thursday night, wondering how you were going to make sure all your payroll checks cleared when you passed them out on Friday.

Some of you have never travelled to a place where the government tells you what to wear, when to go out, who to associate with, and what to say every waking hour.

Some of you were not raised by people who lived through the depression, who know what life is like when the whole world's economy grinds to a halt.

Some of you have never held the hand of a 25 year old, listening to the life rattle out of his shrunken chest.

Or built a company on nothing but a plan and hard work, only to have politicians shut it down.

Or woke up with a prowler standing in your bedroom.

Or spent the night in the ER on oxygen because the person in the next cubicle came to work with the flu.

Some of you have never tried to imagine how terrified people are who are lie awake thinking about different demons than yours.

And it shows.

We're all scared shitless. Some of us are afraid we're going to die. Others because we might infect someone else and they could die. Some of us are afraid that the company we dreamed into existence will not survive another week of social isolation. Some are afraid that the job they left won't be there when the Angel of Corona finally passes over. And others remember our grandparents stories of scrounging coal from the railroad tracks so they could light the stove and heat the house and make coffee on winter mornings before the whole family, parents, grandparents, and children went out in the snowy streets looking for work.

Of course we're scared shitless. We'd be insane not to be. We're just all scared of different things.

Let's put aside the whole idea of "I refuse to live in fear." We know it's a lie before we click the send button. Of course we're afraid.

And it shows.

It shows in how quick to take offense we are. In how hard it is to feel like we've been heard and understood. It shows in how impossible it is to understand how people can make the choices that they make, or accept the limits they accept. It shows in the way our influencers tickle and trigger our fears to keep us alert and on edge and obedient. It shows in our lashing out. Our refusal to acknowledge doubts. Our hatred of strangers. Our deathly fear of getting it wrong and sinking in the storm.

But, fear will not get us through the storm. Fear IS the storm.

Each one of us is afraid, and nobody else can ever really understand what it's like to feel what we feel. Calling someone a fool because they don't fear the same things as you is like you telling them that they don't have a toothache because you have a sprained ankle.

There is no victory for us to win here. This war is lost. The field is littered with dead bodies and dead business and dead dreams and there are no winners in the Time of Corona. There will only be survivors.

But how will we survive? By winning the argument or the election? By breaking one another's hearts and wills? Will we survive by trying and failing to convince half of our neighbors that they are stupid? Will that leave us a world that was worth fighting for?

Or will we walk out of the valley knowing that we found a way to help one another through the dark?

Fear won't get us through. Love will get us through. Respect will get us through. Listening. Caring. Compassion for one another will get us through the Time of Corona. Love someone enough to believe that their fear is real, even if you can't feel a drop of it. Care about someone enough to know that they had a good reason to vote that way, even if you can't make a lick of sense of it. Feel for someone enough to help them find their own courage and strength, even if you aren't sure either of you has a crumb of either. Corona will never be a blessing. But we can learn how to bless one another, even if it really is the end of the world.

If we can't learn that, if we can't learn to love each other, fears and all, we will have wasted the Time of Corona.

We may survive. But not as winners. We will be the most contemptible kind of losers. And you're damn right it will show.

A Good Friday People

Love in the Age of Corona #6

The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb, Hans Holbein the Younger, 1521

It is finished. The Seven Last Words have been preached. The Candles extinguished. The Host has left the sanctuary and the altar has been stripped.

Jesus is dead. God became a man and walked among us, knowing that we would never tolerate God’s true nature. Knowing that we would murder our Creator before surrendering our own misunderstanding of Creation. God knew. And still God came. And suffered. And died. 

The hands that reached into the mud and sculpted the first human have been nailed to a beam and hung on a post. The breath that spoke the universe into being and filled the lungs of the first man and woman with life has stopped. Murdered by our pride and fear. God is dead.

Yes, Easter is coming. But there can be no Easter without Good Friday. There can be no risen Lord without a God who loved enough to offer, for all time, the model for life and ministry, for service and sacrifice. 

Tonight, God lies dead in a borrowed tomb, wrapped in borrowed cloths, anointed in borrowed aloes and spices. Love died on this night.

Those are horrible thoughts to contemplate, but if we aspire to be an Easter people, we must also be a Good Friday people. If we want to see the empty tomb, our arms have to feel the weight of the corpse as it is lowered from the cross. Our legs must carry it to the tomb. Our hands must wash and wrap it in the darkness. And our backs must lean into the stone and our shoulders roll it over the door. Our memories must wrestle with all we have seen and heard and done... and not done... on Good Friday.

What a holy labor it is to suffer with Christ. Our suffering is our sacrifice. What a blessing it is to be given an opportunity to imitate the heart of God, to lose everything for the sake of God and our neighbors.

Don’t miss Good Friday. The pain doesn’t last forever. But without that pain, Easter will be nothing more than a pageant and a fashion show.

May God bless your sacrifice, and grant you the consolation of hope on this holy night.

Amen

For of Such is the Kingdom of Heaven

Love in the Time of Corona #5

 

Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’ And he laid his hands on them and went on his way. ~ Matthew 19:13-15

I remember the mural so vividly. The blue sky. The kind eyes of Jesus. The open faces of the children, "red and yellow, black and white." It was on the wall of Mrs Missplay's Sunday school room and I think it may be the cornerstone of all I believe about Jesus' life and ministry. When everyone with any sense said, "Stay away!", Jesus said, "Let them come to me."

Believe me, I know how lucky I am. Here, in the time of corona, I can still go to work, not because I'm essential, but because essential people need a safe place for their kids while they are working in emergency rooms and ICUs. I learned years ago, I am not important, but God has allowed me to do important things. It is a burden and a blessing for which I will always be grateful.

The kids? Yeah, red and yellow, black and white, just like the song says. They are short and tall, thin and fat. Some have special developmental or medical or emotional needs. There are girls who will very soon be women, and boys who are already practicing how to behave like men. Some need a nap in the afternoon. Others never, ever, EVER shut up. They all love the pool. And nearly all of them break the no-running-in-the-hall rule when their parents or grandparents come to pick them up. Hell, they run to the nurse to line up and have their temperatures taken every 2 hours.

This is not really my demographic. In ordinary times, I spend my days with people who are old, who have been sick, who have looked down the tunnel and seen death's dark train coming, but are determined not to climb aboard just yet. But these? These little children see life waiting and they run toward it, whether it's a swimming pool, a swing set, a soccer field, or the weary arms of a mom who has just spent 12 hours drawing blood and swabbing noses. They are wearing me out. And they are teaching me lessons of life that I somehow forgot.

It's scary, too. During my quiet moments, "What If" haunt me. What if I say something hurtful? I know how much I like to run my mouth. How hurtful I can be without meaning to. What if I make a joke that stings them for years? What if I'm distracted while guarding the pool and one of them slips under the water? What if I miss them? These thinks probably help me to stay vigilant, but they wear on my spirit, as well.

And, God forbid, what if I come in one morning with a fever? What if I test positive? What if the whole program is shut down and all the kids and staff are quarantined because of some precaution I missed or forgot to do that lead me to a positive test?

I think about that way too much. Especially at night. And I cannot imagine what it is like for a dad who spends his days in a mask and gloves, touching people who are coughing and sweating and weeping and sometimes dying with this bug in them. What's behind his loving smile as his daughter runs down the hall to him and throws her arms around his legs?

Every adult I meet has the look. We all know it's out there. Some of us are terrified. Some are angry. But all of us think about it way too much.

But the children? They don't see death. They see life. They play kickball and make mermaids out of paper plates and take turns diving to the bottom of the pool. They are relentlessly, gracefully, irresistibly alive.

I'm sure there are stories I don't know about. Some of them have probably been hurt. Some know too much and have seen far more than they should have. They have tearful moments and some of those tears come from deep places that most adults can't even remember.

They make me want to scream, sometimes. And they are so very easy to love. 

No wonder Jesus' needed them around. 

God became flesh to learn what it was like to be a human. The children were his teachers. They are what we could be at our best. 

They are alive.

Swimming in the Shadows

Love in the Time of Corona #4

There is light in the darkness. I have to remember that, or I'll go as crazy as the world has gone.

But there are shadows, too. 

The unkind word from a friend. The news of racist attacks on neighbors who look Asian. The lies and self-dealing from people we trusted to lead us. Americans buying up all the ammunition they can find. The rules that seem to change from hour to hour.

And then there are the things that are not part of my life, but that I know my friends are living with.

Life in a house full of kids you love that still feels like a cage sometimes. Long shifts at the hospital, not knowing when things are going to blow up. Having to not and take it when some customer lays into you about shortages, when you just spent 10 hours trying to keep shelves stocked. Handling checks and currency  and mail from customers and wondering where those pieces of paper have been and who coughed on them before sliding them across your counter.

Yes. There are shadows.

And I'm sorry, but I don't have a bumper-sticker slogan to make them go away. 

But I do have a strategy. Find a purpose. Choose a direction. And start swimming.

I teach adults to swim at the Y. I'm not a very good teacher, but the people who come to me are so determined and courageous that my shortcomings can't hold them back. Some of them have been afraid of the water for 20, 30, 40 years. Some longer. It is an honor to be present when a 70 year old discovers that she can tread water for the first time in her life or a retire veteran learns that he can swim again after losing his legs. It fills me with awe. I can't imagine the courage it takes to overcome a lifetime of fear. My students inspire me to find the courage to keep trying. And with God's help, I try to pass that courage on.

When the shadows fall across your path, and they will, open your arms, pick them up, and carry them with you for a while. Trust that when it's time to put them down again, you'll know. The Buddha said that suffering is a part of life. Jesus said that we need to be willing to take up a cross and drink the cup from which he drank. 

When we try to escape our suffering, we deny life. That's what addiction is. "Just give me something to make the hurting stop." But it doesn't stop. It's always there.

My friend Art, a cancer survivor of inexhaustible good humor and courage once told me, "I knew I could get up and live or else lay down and die. So I got up." (He used to deny that story, but my memory is clear and even if I did make it up, it's so much like something he would say that I feel fine about quoting him on it.)

No matter how loudly you sing Kumbaya, the shadows will come. Let them come. 

They will break your heart. Let it break.

Your friends will turn crazy and angry and mean. Let them turn.

Open your heart. Catch them up in your arms. Carry them along.

Be afraid. You'd be insane not to. Just don't let your fear pull you under. Just keep swimming.

Swim for the light. Reflect it when you can. And when fear and anger darken the water, swim in the shadows. 

Be the one who helps people find their own courage. Don't worry about what a lousy teacher you are. Trust that they have it in them to be brave, too. Be the one who shows the way.

Find a way to live, even when it hurts. Find a chance to love, even when your heart is broken. Find a way to give when you feel empty. Find the humility to receive grace when you know you don't deserve it. 

But for God's sake, keep swimming.

The Wrong Bug

Love in the Time of Corona #3

Yesterday was my first day at the Y since we announced we were closing down to provide child care for the staff of local hospitals. Several of the team had spent the previous day and evening sanitizing everything a child would touch, from door knobs and tables to lockers and cubbies. Disinfected laundry baskets were lined up along the hall where coats and personal items could be stored safely. The wellness center was silent. It was otherworldly to see the treadmills and weight machines frozen in stillness at 10:00 on a Monday morning. We are a pretty tactile group. It was uncomfortable to greet one another without hugs and hand clasps. I grabbed a walkie talkie at the desk and clocked in.

We had our first change of plans. My assignment was to be in the Lifeguard chair while the kids played in the pool. Some glitches in the registration process kept people from signing up before Wednesday, so no kids in the Y, yet. Instead of changing into my red trunks and whistle, I reported to my boss for credentialing . Before anyone can have direct contact with the kids in a child care environment, she has to submit a complete background check. We sat down in her office (two meters apart) while she asked me lots of personal questions. At one point, I coughed, covering my mouth with my hand, and she reflexively passed me the bottle of sanitizer without even looking up from her monitor. Finally, it was time for a search of the national sex offender's database.

And my name is Bob Johnson.

Damn, there are a lot of nasty people out there with that name. 

Good news: While several people have considered me a sexual disappointment, I have never been an offender in the legal sense. I got a printout to that effect and joined two colleagues for the short ride down Loudon Avenue to the the department of something or other where the state would record our fingerprints. On the ride, we shared stories. Our driver was supposed to be married last Saturday. She seemed to have a pretty good sense of humor about the whole thing, and I suggested that once the danger had passed, we could have her ceremony on the pool deck at the Y and instead of a broom, they could jump over the edge of the pool into the deep end. We laughed, which felt good.

My head felt a little funny as we crossed the parking lot to the office. Not enough coffee. I had a thermos with my lunch back at the Y, and resolved to empty it when we got back to work. The three of us found the door and walked down an empty hallway to a large room full of unoccupied desks. It was the kind of vast, fluorescent office scape that always says "bureaucracy happens here." The kind lady who greeted us told us that "the system was shut down because of the virus" and they would not be able to take our fingerprints. We thanked her, and walked back out to the parking lot.

"They understand that it isn't actually a computer virus, right?" Laughing in times of crisis; my bravado of choice.

My young colleague, another lifeguard and swimming teacher explained patiently that they could not take fingerprints if we could not touch anything.

OK, Boomer.

On the ride home, my head felt even fuzzier, and my stomach started to complain a little. It felt like I was getting car sick, in spite of the fact that our drive took about 6 minutes. By the time we got back to the Y, I was having trouble keeping on my feet, and leaned on a light pole while my the retching began.

Clearly, I would not be part of the days efforts to prepare for the children.

I told the boss I would be clocking out. Grabbed my lunch and thermos and left, asking the folks at the desk to have somebody sanitize the door where I'd touched it. I remembered reading Barbara Tuchman writing about plagues, back my European history classes. Managed to hold down my rising sense of the over-dramatic. Janey, the nurse on duty agreed with me that she hadn't heard about any stomach symptoms associated with CORVI-19, but that there was some kind of stomach thing going around. Just my luck.

Driving home, I prayed to make it to the house before the next spasm from my stomach, but a quick stop at a crosswalk sent it spinning. I managed to pull over into the parking lot of the rehab center, punch the flashers, and hop out before emptying myself out onto the grass by the curb.

One of the residents, alone in the cold morning light, stopped at a safe distance. I felt like Typhoid Mary.

"You all right, brother?" He asked like a man who had seen much worse; he asked like a stranger who cared.

"Just my luck," I said between spasms, "in the middle of a plague and I went and caught the wrong fucking bug."

He laughed hard, and I was grateful that I could still get a yuck out of a stranger, even as the last of my breakfast bid its farewell.

Back in the car. Shoes seemed clean. The cuffs on my pants were going to need to be pre-treated. Home to the birds. I emptied my pockets. Phone. Wallet. Name tag. Walkie-talkie. Shit. I put it in a baggie and drove back to the Y, hoping that there was nothing left inside me. Put the baggie on the mat at the front door, and asked the boss who greeted me to sanitize it all before putting it back into service. 

Back home in bed, with my teeth in a jar and a glass of ginger ale at my side, I remembered the stranger on the street. What demons had he battled? How many people had judged and walked past him when he was in trouble? How many reasons did he have to avoid a puking white man in the middle of an outbreak that had already killed thousands of people all over the world? And yet he stopped. He offered gratuitous kindness. A samaritan on the road to the Y. An agent of Grace.

Thank you, brother. Stay well. Stay clean. I hope we meet again when my breath is better.

I owe you a hug.

In the Presence of Greatness

Love in the Time of Corona #2

After a Sunday of reading, writing, conference calls about work, and meal prep for the week, it was time for a quick run to the neighborhood market for some essentials. Dish soap. Bread. Mint chocolate chip ice cream. A short list to keep my exposure to a minimum.

Walking through the parking lot: social distancing will not be a problem here. The parking lot is practically empty. My heart goes out to the family that runs the King of Food Chinese restaurant. Their health department inspection scores are always borderline at best. I hope they can hold things together, keep things clean, and not lose their business during the coming craziness.

Entering the automatic doors, I see a hastily printed sign announcing per family limits on all the usual staples. It's a noble try, but there are an awful lot of families in this neck of the woods. I'm grateful for the run I made at the beginning of the month that filed my pantry before the shortages began.

There's one woman running a register. The rest of the staff are out in the aisles, cleaning. The cashier greets me with "Hi, Hon." That's the way we roll uptown.

I head straight for the cleaning supplies. Everything with the word "Bleach" on the label is gone, but still plenty of dish soap, both brand name Dawn and the blue generic liquid. I pick up a bottle of Dawn, but the top shelf stuff feels foreign. No sense changing now. I throw a bottle of blue Glo into my basket.

As I walk past the empty shelves where the TP used to be, there is a page over the PA. "Joe, there's a lady on the phone asking if we have any toilet paper in stock." I smile quietly to myself.

Cold cuts and cheese. Still plenty in stock. Lots of soup and sandwiches this week. Bizarrely, all the buttermilk is gone. There will be plenty of biscuits in the neighborhood this week. No eggs either. Pandemic or not, breakfast is still the most important meal of the day. 

The freezer case looks reasonably well- stocked. There are only a handful of the sausage and egg burritos I prefer. I usually grab one for each work day so I don't have to think too hard in the morning, but that would clean them out, so I get two of the good ones and three of the 99 cent ones, hoping that actual chickens were involved in their manufacture.

Hallelujah! Mint chocolate chip is still in good supply. My drug of choice. So much for losing weight during the plague.

I approach the bread racks and immediately think of the Soviet Union. There might be 12 loaves left. It's the gummy white bread that I usually try to avoid, but PB & J are featured prominently in my menu this week, so I grab a loaf, trying not to squish it as I place it on top of my basket.

A grandmother, daughter, and grandson are huddled together, picking out frozen dinners. The child can barely see into the case, so he grabs the side and rests his chin on it to peer down into it.

"Boy, if you don't stop touching things..." Mom's warning has real teeth and the child steps back away into the center of the aisle. Mother and daughter exchange a look. 

"Put your hands in your pockets and keep them there," Granny warns. That boy is going to get the scrubbing of his life when he gets home.

No line at the checkout, but it's late on Sunday and most of the damage has already been done. She is wearing multiple piercings, multi-colored hair, vinyl gloves, and look that tells the story of a work day that has taken its toll.

"Hi, Hon. Find everything?" We both laugh at the idea, but I have to admit that yes, I got everything on my list.

"You've had a hell of a day."

"Oh, yes. The whole world has gone crazy. I was afraid to come in, but ain't nobody going to feed my kids if I don't work"

I have paid sick days, personal time, and vacation at my job. I don't know what to say, so I just smile and not, hoping I appear sympathetic. She scans the bread last and lays it carefully on the top of my bag.

"Well, I sure appreciate you being here."

"Honey, I know. Everybody does. But you feel like obligation, you know? Where are all these people going to find food if we're not here?"

Now, I'm really speechless. I look again at the raggedy hair. The skin is too young to be so rough. The teeth are uneven. Her posture betrays years spent working on her feet. The accent is pure Kentucky hillbilly. I see a dozen clues that make me think I know exactly who I'm talking to before the first sentence is completed. 

I am full of shit.

This is not some back-woods cracker. This woman is a hero.

I am a know-it-all liberal in the presence of authentic greatness.

Humbled, I thank her again as she slips the receipt into my bag with a gloved hand.

"OK, Hon. You have a good day. Be careful."

Be careful. Out in eastern Kentucky, that's how they say good bye. It caught me up short the first time I traveled to Hazzard, but I've come to love it. It says, "It's a dangerous world, and I care about you. I don't want anything to happen to you." I've adopted it as my own farewell. She's showed me just how deep that caring can run. 

She taught me to care enough to look again. To see beyond my own bigotry. I'll be more careful, Hon. I promise. You be careful too. It's a better world with you in it.

When I unpacked my groceries, my white bread was perfect. Not even a dent.

Love in the Time of Corona #1

He was calling from his car. In the background, I could hear rain and traffic and engine noise. In the foreground, I heard terror gushing like a firehose.

The YMCA where I work is closing down to our members. A mass email had just announced that we were being converted to a child care center for the health care workers who are staffing our hospitals during the pandemic. My young colleague at the front desk, a handsome high school senior with chiseled features, a golden heart, and a glass jaw answered the call, then turned, wide-eyed and silently extended the phone to me.
“Hi, this is Bob. How can I help?”
“Let me just explain to you fuckers what you’ve done. You've killed me. I have a heart condition. My life depends on being able to get exercise every day. If I don’t exercise, I will die. Now I get this email telling me the family membership I’m paying almost a hundred dollars a month for... that nobody else in my family uses... that we only got so my son could play soccer which I’m sure will be cancelled anyway. You realize, right, that all these kids they are sending home, they can carry the virus for 14 days before they show symptoms? Right? Closing these schools has just guaranteed that their parents will all get it. And now you’re telling me I can’t use the membership I’m paying for? I want to cancel. This email is a fucking death sentence for me. You get that, right?”
I’ve spent hours training on process and procedure. Listening skills. Customer service. Learning the right thing to say to get and keep customers for everything from store fixture manufacturers to theatre companies. I’ve performed for crowds of thousands of people who laughed and cried with me. I’ve studied the scriptures, helped lead congregations, fallen in love with church communities, and had my heart and mind broken by them. I’ve read psychology books, sat for years on head-shrinkers couches, and given speech after speech about the wonderful history and culture of the YMCA. 
None of those things prepared me for this phone call.
Or maybe, all of them did.
“I can hear how angry and frustrated you are feeling. I want to make sure you understand that we are keeping one branch in the city open so people can work out...”
“Yeah, in the hood. So I can die by not exercising, or I can die walking in the shittiest part of town to workout in a place I’ve never been before.”

Now, I’ve heard this sort of thing from time to time. It usually comes from people who don’t like my neighborhood, (which is actually much closer to the shittiest part of town, if I’m honest about it,) and are nervous about the fact that the branch where I work is located beside railroad tracks, down the street from a major drug rehab center, and across the road from a homeless men’s shelter, near a street that the locals still call “Crack Alley.” I’m not used to hearing people say they are furious because they aren’t allowed to come up to the ‘hood.
“All of this is such bullshit. There is only one person in Lexington with the virus. It’s all politics. They are fucking with us and killing me. I had a blood clot that almost killed me. I will die without that elliptical machine, goddamit.”
Now, I do make an effort not to play the cancer card at every opportunity. Don’t get me wrong, I’’ve milked that old cow dry more than a few times. But it’s a little game I play with myself: How long can I go without telling someone I had cancer. It’s like my secret super-hero identity. I call him “The Amazing Cancer Boy.” Something told me it was time to pull on the tights and cape.
“You know what? What you’re saying makes absolute sense to me. I am a cancer survivor. I don’t know how I would have lived this long without the Y.”
“EXACTLY! People don’t understand how important this shit is to our sanity. I almost died, man!”
“I feel you, brother. After two months of radiation treatments and chemo, I threw a clot, saddle embolism.”
“THAT’S WHAT I HAD! The fucking widow maker."
“That’s why my doc called it, right! So you know what I’m saying. I would have lost my mind if I hadn’t found the Y 10 years ago. I think the most important thing for us to do right now is to find you a place where you feel comfortable working out. Do you agree?”
“Yeah, but... Everything is closed.”
“Listen, Planet Fitness is still open. I had a membership there for a while. It’s clean. Friendly people. Good equipment. Now, look. It’s not the Y. But for 10 or 20 bucks a month, you can have a place to work out until this corona thing blows over.”
“I don’t even know where... Where are they?”
“There’s one right around the corner, right next to Krogers on New Circle Road.”
“Man, that’s all the way across town.”
OK, something isn't right about this. Kroger is emphatically not all the way across town. It is 5 minutes away at rush hour.
“Brother, which Y branch do you use?”
“I can’t drive all the way over there. I am literally 3 minutes from the Beaumont Y. That’s why I called you!”
Dude dialed the wrong number. He thought he was calling the big, beautiful Y on the south end of town. The one with three swimming pools and thousands of members and a whole studio dedicated to martial arts. The Beaumont Y is bigger than many shopping malls. He thinks he’s complaining to the president of General Motors, and he’s got a clerk from the local bike shop on the phone.
“OK, first things first. It sounds like you’re driving, right? There’s a Planet Fitness on Nicholasville Road. Get over there and get a membership. I don’t want you to cancel your Y membership. I want you to call Beaumont on Monday and have them put it on hold for four months for you. Surely to god, this will all be wrung out by July. You can reactivate your membership anytime before them, and your boy can keep playing soccer. Listen, man. It’s gonna be OK. Get in that gym. Your family needs you, OK?”
“OK, that’s a good idea. I’ll do that, then.”
“You be careful, man. We’re gonna get through this.” 
Love in the time of corona is a complicated business. Things aren’t always what they first appear. Sometimes, a package of toilet paper is really a life preserver. A doorknob can turn out to be patient zero. For me, an entitled, bigoted bully turned out to be a man so afraid of dying that he had to go out in the rain and make an angry phone call from his car so his wife and kids couldn’t see the terror in his eyes. 
I just realized. I never even asked his name. I don’t think it matters.
And I can’t help wondering... Why in hell did that guy call my branch? How did his voice wind up in my ear? Reason tells me it was just a coincidence that out of all the bright faced, part-time  staffers in the city that he could have reached on a Saturday afternoon, he managed to get on the phone with an old guy at the wrong branch who had survived exactly the same life-threatening condition that he had. It’s ridiculous to infer some kind of providence that put me right there at the desk at that moment instead of washing towels, disinfecting exercise machines, meeting personal training clients, or guarding the pool as I had been doing for 98% of my day until that moment. It is absurd to think that in the middle of a plague, God busies himself routing customer service calls.
But in my absurd, ridiculous, irrational heart, I can’t help but take comfort from the thought...
His eye really is on the sparrow. Even in the time of corona.