Can I Make a Suggestion To My Church?

Zoomed with my kids yesterday. They are all healthy and handsome. We don’t zoom with them every five minutes, just once every ten days or so. It’s always such a relief to see their faces, to be reassured that they are well. For this I am thankful. But video-chats are a poor substitute for hugs.

What’s today...Monday? Yes, Monday. We had church on the deck yesterday morning when we watched Wes Peterson bring the message via Pam’s iPhone while eating breakfast...so yesterday was Sunday...making today Monday. This is how I keep up with the days of the week now.

Yes...that breakfast was amazing. Pam has been finding recipes all over the place during this...thing...and the results have been stellar. This particular offering was sausage wrapped in a croissant stuffed with cheese, somehow moist and flaky at the same time. Poor Wes didn’t have a chance. It’s hard to concentrate on a sermon when eating such a thing. He spoke about Elisha, I do remember that much. I’m about done with virtual church. It’s been eight weeks since I’ve been in a congregation at my church. I’m missing it more and more with each passing week. I have a half-baked plan in my head of how we should reopen, and since every other response to the Coronavirus has been half-baked, this one should fit right in.

My church normally has four services on Sunday. Our main auditorium seats roughly 700 people. We have an overflow room which seats probably another 100, and we have a separate building down the hill a ways called The Lodge which seats another 100 or so. In normal times each of these services are full or nearly full. In the auditorium the seats are crammed together very closely, too closely I have always thought. Here is my half-baked plan. Let’s say Pam and I wanted to attend the 9:30 service next Sunday. We would have to go to our website and make a reservation...first come, first served. As soon as a pre-determined number make such reservations (say 250), that service would be sold out. We would then be instructed to download a ticket to present when we arrive. Meanwhile, the chairs inside the building would be vastly reconfigured, providing for the proper social distancing requirements. Two chairs together for husbands and wives, space, space, space, then some single seats, space, space space then another couple of seats together etc.. No offering would be taken up, no communion served. This plan would only provide roughly a thousand people to attend on a given Sunday over those four services, far lower than the twenty five hundred that currently attend. But, as the weeks go by, the number allowed in would rise from 250 to 350 etc. No coffee would be served. None of those delicious cookies. (I TOLD you this was half-baked). I have no idea what to do about the kids wing. That’s beyond my pay grade. 

I offer this plan as a starting point. I’m sure that the very bright people on our church leadership team have already discussed similar plans for re-opening, but so far have shared none of their ideas with us. If I could offer any suggestion to them it would be to share their vision of how we will re-open. Their silence on this subject isn’t helpful or hopeful.

Ok, enough of that. How do you all feel about blond jokes? I have to be careful in this day and age. For one thing, I am married to a blond. For another thing, in my experience people either think that blond jokes are hysterical or they think that they are a misogynistic tool of the patriarchy. Such are the treacherous waters of the comedy ocean. But, I will take the risk and the heat for what follows:

An old, blind cowboy wanders into an all-girl biker bar by mistake. He finds his way to a bar stool and orders a shot of Jack Daniels. After sitting there for a while, he yells to the bartender, "Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?" The bar immediately falls absolutely silent.....

...in a very deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says,

"Before you tell that joke, Cowboy, I think it is only fair, given that you are blind, that you should know five things:

The bartender is a blonde girl with a baseball bat.

The bouncer is a blonde girl.

I'm a 6-foot tall, 175-pound blonde woman with a black belt in karate.

The woman sitting next to me is blonde and a professional weight lifter.

The lady to your right is blonde and a professional wrestler.

Now, think about it seriously, Cowboy. Do you still wanna tell that blonde joke?"

The blind cowboy thinks for a second, shakes his head and mutters, "No, not if I'm gonna have to explain it five times."

Best Day of The Coronavirus

Yesterday was perhaps the best day I’ve had since the onset of COVID-19. It was a premeditated gardening day. I had braved the long line at Strange’s the day before and bought all the necessities. God provided me with picture perfect weather that felt like July 1st in Maine. So, I spent five hours with my hands buried deep into potting soil, laying out my tomato plants and Pam’s herb garden. For the rest of the year we will reap the benefits of the herb garden. The tomatoes, not so much. They are mostly my personal vanity project. I water them, check on their daily progress, fertilize them, take pictures of their prodigious growth, then bask in the glow of pride as dozens of green tomatoes burst forth on their sturdy vines. Then literally hours before I plan on picking them to make BLT’s I will discover large chunks of ripe tomato flesh missing...in the shape of squirrel teeth. My deep, psychotic and clearly deranged hatred of that worthless animal renewed, I will roam my backyard for days afterwards, BB-gun loaded and cocked seeking revenge. Out of the 75-100 tomatoes which these plants will produce during the summer, Pam and I will eat roughly 10-15 of them, making my tomatoes the most expensive vegetables in the western world.* The rest will either get befouled by squirrels or ripen while we are in Maine, providing nourishment for our dog sitter. And yet, every year you will find me laying out my tomato plants. Hope springs eternal.

We will have far better luck with the thyme and parsley...

...two varieties of basal.

...mint and rosemary.

To top off this perfect day, Pam invited my sister Paula and her husband Ron over for a socially distant dinner out on the deck. We ordered our meal from Tazikis, sat ten feet apart while eating, then gathered around a fire that I made in my beloved solostove, the single greatest purchase made in the Dunnevant household since Lucy...

Today looks like another beauty. Maybe another fire tonight.


* before I get inundated with helpful tips on protecting my tomato plants from squirrels, let me save you the trouble. I’ve tried everything in the book...yes, even deer urine. Nothing has been able to prevent the tree rats from stealing them at the peak of their ripeness. Although, I have had the intense pleasure of catching a few of them in the act and skillfully sending them to squirrel hell with one single shot from my Daisy Powerline 35, an activity which makes the entire project feel temporarily worthwhile.

Seven Things I Learned This Week

Having your personal freedoms taken away from you during a pandemic should be viewed as a growth opportunity. At least, that’s what an endless barrage of insufferably upbeat self-help posts on Facebook have been telling me. I should be seizing this golden opportunity at self-reflection presented to me by the evisceration of my liberties. So, this week I have heeded their advice. To that end, may I present to you...seven things I learned this week:

1. When cracking jokes about the most ruthless and ridiculous sociopath to rule a nation since Pol Pot, it is apparently possible to go too far. 

2. There is an enormous amount of difference between growing a beard and simply not shaving, which a surprising number of people don’t understand.

3. Sitting around a blazing fire with people you love might be one of life’s greatest pleasures.

4. If one’s own happiness is temporarily unattainable, there is always the happiness of others to consider. Put another way, get over yourself.

5. Without naming names, there are several Governors who are clearly enjoying their shiny new status as men and women of consequence. Their newfound powers must feel positively intoxicating. I mean, one minute they are lounging around the governor’s mansion in their pajamas asking their aides which outfit they should wear to the new strip mall ribbon cutting and the next thing they know, they’re standing in front of a bank of microphones, with a sign language dude in their peripheral vision ordering people to do this and don't do that and trying desperately to give off a Churchillian vibe, dreaming of the White House.

6. There is possibly no phrase in the English language that I presently despise more than...new normal. Our present circumstances are neither, and for all of you statists out there desperately seeking that generational opportunity to reorder society to your liking...this ain’t it. When this is over, the old normal is coming back with a vengeance.

7....with the possible exception of the movie theatre and the post office, which are both dead.

An Eventful Morning

What do finishing Middlemarch, cutting your thumb while emptying the dishwasher at 5 am, and the anticipation of a day of storms have in common? Virtually nothing. But that won’t stop me from attempting to write about all three this morning. 

So, I thought I would put this pandemic lockdown to good use by reading a couple classic novels that I have somehow never read. The first on my list was George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Set in the 1830’s in the fictional provincial town of Middlemarch, this sprawling epic is the story of the intertwined lives of a set of families who deal with the calamities that befall their fortunes and reputations in mid 19th century England. I have always been told that this is Eliot’s masterwork and one of the finest novels ever written in the English language. Well...

See, here’s the thing. You know that nagging feeling you get when you read anything by Jane Austin that she is way smarter than you? Yeah, well...its twice as bad with George Eliot. This woman could lay down a simple declarative sentence like nobody’s business, with a mixture of grace and intelligence that makes this writer want to give up writing altogether. There is no way in hades that George Eliot would ever write a sentence like...See, here’s the thing...for example.  However, having said all of this, she has that dreadful habit of English writers of a certain time where one gets the feeling that she is being paid by the word. Holy crap, (another expression she wouldn’t have been caught dead using) does she go on and on and on about inconsequential things! Reading this book felt very much like surviving a gauntlet. You just had to plow through the psychological motivations of crossing one’s frail hands on one’s lap to get to the part where something startling happens. Many of the characters in this book are so exasperating in their foolishness, so desperately dense, and so lacking in any ability of getting to the freaking point, you find yourself fighting the urge to give the thing up. But then you encounter a scene rendered with such beautiful writing, such immense talent on display, you find the courage and determination to trudge on...and ultimately you are rewarded. But, seriously, what in God’s name was Dorothea thinking marrying a stiff like Casaubon? A 20 year old woman marries a 49 year old dried up academic and then is shocked to discover that they have nothing in common? And how tedious is Fred Vincy with his worthless laziness, general lack of ambition, and sense of entitlement? Well, I will not retell the story here. If you want to know what happens, read it yourself. Despite it’s frustrations, I’m glad I did.

My morning routine includes emptying the dishwasher while I wait for my coffee to brew. This morning, at the outset of this task I happened to reach for the blade of the chopper ninja thing and sliced my thumb. Have you ever tried emptying a dish washer at 5 am with a bleeding thumb? I don’t recommend it. Of course, it doesn’t help matters that I am on so many blood thinners that even the most minor abrasion produces rivers of blood. Eventually, I prevailed. All the clean dishes are properly put away, the thumb has finally stopped bleeding, and now I can concentrate on the thrill I feel at the gathering wave of storms due to hit us here in Short Pump today. The line of storms on the radar is impressive. There promises to be high wind, thunder and lightening, and heavy downpours which will bring minor flooding! Why this sort of forecast excites me so is a perplexing question since I share a house with Lucy the Lunatic, a dog preternaturally inclined to erratic behavior in such weather, including but not limited to emptying her bladder on inconvenient surfaces. But still I love thunder storms. Don’t you?

COVID-19 and Sophie’s Choice

In an hour or so I will head into the office to begin week 7 of the Coronavirus lockdown here in the Old Dominion. Over the weekend some dude from the State Health Department let slip his view that the stay at home order would probably be in place for two years!! When the manure began hitting the fan, he quickly walked his words back with a weaselly denial, the kind that bureaucrats are famous for. Policy makers in Virginia...Virginia...are rumbling about two more years of lock down, a state ranked 18th out of 50 states by confirmed cases of the virus. Question: How many businesses with less than 50 employees do you know who could survive two more years of being closed? Answer: Zero. 

So, the difficult question that policy makers have to address is, in order to save as many lives as possible from the Coronavirus, how much economic destruction is tolerable? This involves the philosophically difficult question of attaching a financial value on a human life. Some will say that it is impossible to assign a monetary value to a human life since every human life has infinite possibility. On the other hand, we make these decisions all the time whenever cost/benefit analysis is done on public safety questions. For example, governments at all levels in this country know that deaths from automobile accidents could be severely cut by just a few decisions, placing speed restrictions on car engines, forbidding anyone less than 21 or over 70 years old to drive. However, there are strong competing economic reasons not to do so. Apparently, although people are fully aware of the risks associated with the purchase and use of automobiles and motorcycles, they continue to do so. This same calculation is made in a whole host of activities that we all participate in every day. We weigh the benefits and the dangers of all sorts of activities and make our decisions based on what we think is worth the risk. Policy makers here in Virginia are trying to find that balance between public health and the economic activity that sustains our lives. Let’s say that their best estimates are that reopening the economy on June 1st will save 250,000 jobs and save 10,000 businesses from bankruptcy...but...they also have estimates that say reopening on June 1st, rather than say, two years from now, would result in 10,000 more avoidable deaths from the virus? What do you do? For the 10,000 people who would die and their families, the correct decision is obvious. For the 250,000 who lose their jobs and the 10,000 businesses that go under, its a different story.

Obviously, I have plucked all of those numbers out of the air to illustrate a point. However, it is precisely these sorts of calculations that officials in government all over this country are grappling with. It is for this reason that we all should be praying for them. They need wisdom and courage to make the right calls. 

I’m glad its them and not me.

The Light At The End of My Tunnel

The first of May hasn’t quite arrived yet, but during a lockdown pandemic, who’s counting days? This is normally the time of year when I begin the slow, plodding process of becoming useless. No matter what the task, my efforts become perfunctory. I start going through the motions, marking time, making mental etches on the prison cell in my head. Why? Because May the 1st brings Maine inside the 60 day window. Since this year’s trip begins on June 27, tomorrow is the day.

Some of you have asked me if we still plan on going to Maine what with the Coronavirus and it’s quarantine requirements. By way of an answer I will share with you my reply to Tiffany at On The Water In Maine, our amazing real estate company in Camden when she sent me an email reminder that my second half payment for our month of July rental was due:

“Tif, Pam and I can assure you that we will arrive at Loon Call on Crawford Lake on the 27th of June if we have to hitch hike and then be dropped in the lake by helicopter and swim to shore!”

If the month of July still finds us in nationwide lock down, I feel that we can lock ourselves down on a lake in Maine just as easily as we can in Short Pump. All we have to do is get there. To that end I am fully prepared to resurrect a strategy from 25 years ago. Back then, when the kids were little, I would leave the house around 7 o’clock at night and drive straight through...stopping for the first time in New Jersey for gas and a bathroom break, and not again until the first rest area in Maine, 12 hours later. Of course, back then, we still had another hour and a half left to make it to Dummer’s Beach, where Pam essentially grew up. Now we head to Camden, Maine which is slightly closer. But, if we have to forego a night at a hotel on the way up to stay within safety protocols, that is exactly what we will do. This is non-negotiable. If I have to stay in my home in Short Pump, allowed to leave my house only to buy groceries and go for walks, I can do that in Maine.

There are two trips planned this year, the month of July on Crawford Lake in a place called Loon Call:

...and two weeks in October (maybe three if we catch a break) at our favorite place in the Universe, Loon Landing:

This is what keeps me going right now. This is the light at the end of the tunnel. This is the reward for all the hard work, the point of all the patience. If I had the power and the resources, I would take everyone I love on this earth with me. Everyone should get to experience it just once. Coronavirus or no Coronavirus.

“I Have a Good Life”

The last six weeks has been an education. I have learned things about the world, my country and myself, both good and bad. Quarantine and self isolation has clarified some things for me, made me more thankful for friends and family. I saw my country, in the early days of the crisis, momentarily set aside the acrimony and division that has plagued us for so long, and unite around the shared sacrifice of the moment. Six weeks in, it’s all back with a vengeance, but it sure was nice while it lasted.

I’ve listened to the agonizing stories of my clients who own small businesses. They have felt helpless as the losses pile up. They feel a responsibility to their employees but wonder how long they can hold it all together. They are watching what took a lifetime to build slowly slipping away. It is an unprecedented type of agony.

Luckily, I have not lost anyone close to me to the virus, although a dear friend with troubling symptoms has just been tested and is currently waiting for the results. But, I do know friends who have lost parents who were in nursing homes and hospice, and had to suffer the indignity of allowing their Moms and Dads to die alone with no one to hold their hands.

With each passing day, my social media newsfeed grows more and more unhinged, unaccredited rumors and stories from bloggers I’ve never heard of passed along as fact...COVID-19 is a plot hatched in the deep state to take away religious freedom...5G towers are spreading the virus...Trump is going to cancel the election and declare martial law....post pandemic life in America will require a 70% tax rate...I take a deep breath and whisper a prayer.

The other day I was talking to my brave friend about all of this. She shares my profession and is trying to deal with all of this while in a life and death struggle with cancer, chemo poison coursing through her veins. Can you even imagine?? The exchange between us is an excellent summation of the daily battle that takes place within all of us in one way or another...

Me: Every single morning, no matter what hour I wake up, the news is overwhelmingly bad...with very few exceptions. It has been this way for over 6 weeks now. I’ve discovered that every single day, finding the motivation to move forward has to be an act of the will. I have to DECIDE to fight the negativity. It doesn’t happen naturally, I have to force it on myself by an act of the will. Does that make any sense? If I give in to what I read of the news of the day, I wind up wallowing in despair all day. It’s like getting stuck in the mud. Its not screwing on a fake happy face, but rather, a conscious decision to seek out the good, the positive. It takes great intentional effort.

Her: Yes I understand completely.  I’m the same way.  I have to remind myself almost daily that overall I’m doing really well!  I remind myself daily that even in the midst of the storm I’m so very blessed. I have a good life. But, it has been a lot for one person to endure. When you throw in a chilly rain, it makes it worse. Your dumb jokes make me laugh, which is a lot better than crying. The bottom line is, after I have done all I can do, I have to turn everything over to the Lord and trust him.

Me: Easier said than done...

Her: Yes, but it has to be done. Also, embrace joy wherever you find it...in Pam, your children, cookies, beautiful trees and flowers...Tomorrow is a new day!!

...This from a woman who is enduring unspeakable illness and pain every single day, and yet declares with astonishing confidence , “ I have a good life.”

Yes she does.