Beauty All Around

I live in the Austin area, and I love this town. As a college student, I spent many a weekend evening down on 6th street, and when someone first posted a picture of all the bars and clubs boarded up, my heart sank, even as I understood it's for all our own good.

I wasn't the only one who felt that way. And some people did something about it.

The creative community came together, bringing the need for beauty together with the talent of artists. They created a "Hope Gallery" with murals encouraging Austinites to have courage, have hope, know that we are neighbors, and will overcome.

While doctors and nurses are hard at work, it is artists of all types who are tending to our hearts and spirits. Galleries have -- virtually -- thrown open their doors, musicians are having free concerts online, actors are presenting plays or short pieces. Soak up the art. Feed your soul. (And if you see a tip jar out, toss a few bucks in. This industry has ground to a halt.)

Art Museums
Concerts
Classical Music Livestreams
Broadway Musicals

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We've Reached the "Tom Hanks Eating Raw Fish" Phase of the Pandemic

Last May, as it became apparent the covid-19 pandemic was not going to be a temporary affair, I wrote about the benefits of imagining you were shipwrecked on a deserted island. Now, a year after we began hearing about the "novel coronovirus," I suspect that many of us have now entered the "Tom Hanks Eating Raw Fish" stage of the pandemic. We've made the best of things. Rearranged home offices and homeschool desks. Got through the holidays, mustering as much joy as we could. There's a permanent hook or basket at the front door for our masks. Most of us by now either know someone who died of covid, or are, at most, 2 degrees away. Our co-worker's husband's mother. Our friend's aunt. Or closer. We've grieved. And now...we're just numb. We keep putting one foot in front of the other, because that's what we have to do. We eat, we drink, we sleep. We get our work done. We nag our kids to do school work. But our affect is flat. Like Ha...

Me and My Collar

You may run into me on a Friday, in my neighborhood, so it's time I let you know what you might see. When I was doing my required unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), my supervisor suggested that any of us who came from traditions where a clerical collar was an option, take one "collar week," to see how we were treated, as opposed to wearing regular professional clothes. After a couple of days, I joked to the Catholic priest, "How do you manage the power?" In regular clothes, I would walk into a patient's room, and it would take about 5 or so minutes of introductions and pleasantries before we could really get down to talking about their feelings, their fears, the deep stuff. With most people, as soon as that clerical collar walked in the room, with me attached, they began pouring out all the heavy stuff they were carrying. I was riding the bus back and forth every day, and though not quite so dramatic, the collar effect was alive there, to...

Could You Send Her for the Ammunition?

Let me preface by saying I know that not all people are comfortable with military/war metaphors, so feel free to either find a metaphor that works for you, or skip this altogether. My dad, however, was a Korean war veteran who went to military college (that's what Texas A&M was in those days), originally stationed in artillery before being changed at the last minute to be a teacher in the corps of engineers. So some battle metaphors worked for him in explaining the world around him. His highest compliment about a person's character was an affirmative answer to "but could you send them for the ammunition?" The metaphor is this: you are in battle, and it's not looking good. You've got a partner with you, and y'all are running out of ammunition. If you send this person back to get more ammunition, will they return? Or will they promise to return, but then run the opposite direction, sacrificing you in the process? He and I would talk about this,...

Boots and Blessings

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