Thoughts on July 27, 2020

       This morning I woke up at 6:59 a.m. I reached for the clock radio on the nightstand to switch on the seven o'clock news. The news is seldom good these days but this morning it was especially ghastly:
    - The riots have spread to Seattle, Los Angeles, Louisville, New York, and other cities around the country. And Portland, Oregon, where my sister lives, is a burning war zone.
     - The COVID19 epidemic continues to spike nationwide.
     - Many restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues are on the brink of permanently shuttering due to fallout from the epidemic.
    - Hurricanes have crashed into the coast of Texas and and threatened the Hawaiian Islands. The hurricane season has arrived months early.
     - Larry Householder, the Republican Speaker of the House of the Ohio State Legislature accepted $60 million in bribes from  an Ohio coal and nuclear energy company to push through a law that calls for the de-funding of green and solar energy sources and the funneling of $150 billion in taxpayer funds to subsidize the energy company. The law was passed and the Speaker used his bribe money to line his own pockets and buy Republican seats in the Ohio Legislature.
      I  switched off the news and lay in bed feeling funky a little panicked. The words from the song "Lovely London Skies" from the movie "Mary Poppins Returns" popped into my head:
                                            Hold on tight to those you love
                                            And maybe soon from up above
                                           You'll be blessed so keep on looking high
      But then, isn't the biggest fear we all share during this epidemic that we might lose those we love? And the paradox that holding those we love may put them in danger of being taken away from us by the virus? Not to mention the fear that we ourselves might be taken away? And how many millions of Americans who've lost their jobs or businesses are struggling to hold on without enough money to keep food on the table and a roof over their family's head? The paradox here being that those above the rest of us, those who we elected to run the affairs of our country for the well-being of us all, those who have the power to bless those Americans in need with the financial  sustenance and united fortitude to survive this scourge have no plan and can't even agree on how to put one together. No sensible plan to fight the virus, no sensible plan to help the country survive it.  And so it's every state, city, man and woman struggling for themselves.
        I suddenly felt an intense overwhelming need to jump out of bed and do something. Do something for my country. Do something for my fellow Americans. Do something for those I love and whose welfare I fear for. But what could I do at that moment? I had to remind myself that the only way to keep on looking high was to keep on looking ahead to 99 days from now when our country will have the opportunity to be blessed with new leadership, if we so choose.
         And so I shook off the funk and fear as well as I could and said my daily morning prayer, the words of an old Carole King song:
                                  You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face
                                  And show the world all the love in your heart.
                                  And people gonna treat you better,
                                 You're gonna find out, yes you will,
                                  That you're beautiful as you feel.
         Some days heeding those words is about the best you can do.