Category: Digging for Courage

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Our Kind of Classroom

Our learning lifestyle changed dramatically in 2020. Almost all of our learning is done socially. As government Lockdowns partnered with fear-driving media, it became impossible to find people to learn from and with. The dozens (hundreds?) of individuals we interacted with per week was whittled down to a couple of families.

Fortunately, the mom of one of those families was sure that there were more of us who recognized the need for social learning. I was a naysayer, but backed her efforts to start a new group of families as the summer of Lockdowns began. On our first “official” get together, there were eight families and most of us didn’t know each other. The group has grown and the core families have become fast friends. I’ve witnessed (and received) material, emotional, and spiritual gifts given everyday through our various chats and group texts. Our weekly gatherings have grown into multiple days of video gaming, analog gaming, Lego building, cooking, and all types of learning meet-ups.

The latest adventure was brought to us by a mom brand new to homeschooling. She may have been considered a Crisis, or Isolation, Schooler when she met us. Lockdown restrictions on schools did not work for her family. I don’t know how she found our group, but she and her children have been a blessing to us in a number of ways.

One way was an invite to participate in Junior Rifle Club, a weekly meet of children to get instruction on gun safety and usage.

It was an early start and my boys struggled a bit with hearing the initial safety speech repeated a few times as new participants arrived. Although unplanned, I believe it was important for them to hear the messages multiple times (which, of course, they would continue to hear throughout the morning).

They took turns shooting and observing for close to three hours without complaint. They got to watch their improvement on the targets and the learning was off the charts, too much to absorb in one morning. I have no doubt that this will become an important part of our week and we will be broadening our skills in significant ways.

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Hope

Live music. A friend lamented at music’s healing power of sound, connection, rhythm, and pure magic. I shared the lament. This is the longest I’ve gone without a proper concert (even counting the miracle yoga and music fest we attended in August).

Then I remembered I had tickets for a Lone Bellow concert at Union Transfer in Philly in March. My date for that show dumped me months ago and I was pessimistic that it was still happening at all. I looked up the venue and the show is still listed as on!

With good news trickling out and an event date right at the beginning of spring, I’m cautiously optimistic that my friend and I will be letting loose like the maniacs we are in a couple months.

Now, to find that magical, four-day, hippie fest my sons and I have been craving…

Disclosure: The links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

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Back to Service

God blesses us every day.

I have been sorely missing the service opportunities provided by our church community. I’m a poorly educated Christian, but my experience with the Gospels places love and service over fear of the human frailty of disease. Slowly, we are finding ways to help our neighbors in the spirit of Christ.

For a few hours this MLK, Jr. Day, we felt love and shared it as we were given the chance to help beautify One Village Alliance’s Freedom Center in Wilmington.

When we arrived, someone was already outlining a mural and the grounds looked like this.

We removed a massive amount of ivy and I was allowed to build a makeshift fire pit.

I got lost in the ivy. My late wife, Mary, and I lived in two homes that existed under the constant threat of being overrun. I indulged in a touch of anger at the creeping vines as I smiled at the cleared fence and grounds. The firepit gave more catharsis. My knees hurt from grappling with the ivy embedded in two inches of driveway gravel and dirt, but permission to put the cinder blocks to use was more than enough to overcome the discomfort. Mary loved fires. We never had a pit this big and I envisioned her working alongside me to prep the fire.

My sons faded from the yard work and I couldn’t blame them, there was painting to do. They started inside, helping with the stairs, and ended up contributing to the love-infused mural outside.

Finally, they were rewarded with a videogame paradise provided by Mobile Entertainment Theater.

We were all rewarded with this day of service. I made new connections and saw friends who I’ve missed for nearly a year. We walked away with jobs still to be done, but also real improvement in a necessary community center.

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Night Time Fun in Sarasota

A real life, living, live and alive, amplified bluegrass band? I don’t care if the setlist was uninspired (and more country than bluegrass), the female lead singer had an old school somewhere-between-Patsy-Cline-and-June-Carter vibe and the bass player was super cool with my son. Live music is in my DNA. It seemed like such a simple pleasure 10 months ago and now, now it’s the kind of thing I would drive a thousand miles to see.

After dinner, we strolled the streets of Sarasota enjoying the art and the quiet.

After a full day of adventuring through botanical gardens, it’s hard to imagine a better close to the day.

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Context, Danger, and the Fear Response

Perspective is critical when assessing danger. An immediate threat activates our primal survival brain. As time passes (and assuming the danger hasn’t killed us) we can quiet the fear response and start to frame the danger with context.

A study that included almost 10 million people in Wuhan, China, presents context on the threat of asymptomatic spread of Covid-19.

“Of the 300 asymptomatic positive cases, two cases came from one family and another two were from another family. There were no previously confirmed COVID-19 patients in these two families. A total of 1,174 close contacts of the asymptomatic positive cases were traced, and they all tested negative for the COVID-19. There were 34,424 previously recovered COVID-19 cases who participated in the screening. Of the 34,424 participants with a history of COVID-19, 107 tested positive again, giving a repositive rate of 0.310% (95% CI 0.423–0.574%).”

Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China


These numbers undercut the foundational argument for the Lockdowns. An argument that was initially propped up with a false anecdote.

A Chinese business woman in Germany supposedly transmitted the infection to her German colleagues before returning home.

The doctors reporting this neglected to speak to the woman and it turned out that she had been self medicating to hide symptoms in order to complete her work.

Study claiming new coronavirus can be transmitted by people without symptoms was flawed

It’s way past time to have a rational discussion about what we can do to improve the overall health of our society.

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Embrace Me

I shook someone’s hand today. I hugged a pastor yesterday. I embraced family on Christmas. Why should these things stand out? Why must they be remarked upon?

I wasn’t raised with a lot of physical affection. My dad was breaking a cycle of abuse and my mom came from a reserved Anglo family.

When I met my wife, we had the physical passion of new lovers, but she introduced me to a casual affection that stirred a longing in me. I remember the first hippy camping festival we attended together: her friends, total strangers to me, hugged me and said, “Welcome home.” It was not comfortable, I hadn’t experienced that kind of openness before. It took me years to open myself to friendly, physical gestures like that. It wasn’t until I held my first son that I began to understand how important physical connection is for me.

This year has been a cruel reminder of how much I crave physical, mental, and spiritual closeness with people.

I didn’t need a reminder. Widowhood has meant plenty of isolation.

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A Christmas Miracle

It was a bad day. My energy, temper, patience, compassion…none of it was what I needed to be today. I was a shell toddling around in places I was supposed to be, present in none of them.

Somehow I remember that the greatest victories come out of these dark places.

My father gave my son and I books by Carl Jung today. A four-hundred page paperback of tiny type for an eleven-year-old.

That’s why I remember Jung, “No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” I cling to these words as the roots dig deeper. I cling to this as I chase, battle, and retreat from demons through my dreams, leaving me unrested each morning for days.

Two hours left in this awful day and I’m on the floor with unwrapped gifts, acting out a solo version of an old tradition. Mary and I would stay up wrapping gifts, leaving evidence of Santa’s visit, and preparing for Christmas morning. Santa has left the stage, but I still feel the pressure to make Christmas morning special.

This will be my third Christmas as a single father. With all my carrying on, I’ve managed to not have a girlfriend each year at this time. Maybe Mary still occupies too much of my heart in this season, there may not be room for anyone else quite yet.

I thought the miracle might come today. This month has been indefatigably difficult. I know something wonderful is near. It will be a surprise and I am eager for it to arrive. I suppose that is why I must wait a while longer.

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Self Reflections and Groupthink

Two things I listened to today brought up the topic of groupthink in relation to Covid-19. I think it’s too easy for those in a seemingly minority position to accuse the perceived majority of groupthink.

Instead, I turn inward and look at my own penchant for confirmation bias. The strange events of the last year have divided society cleanly into believers in Lockdown and the skeptical. The problem with this cleavage is that it doesn’t afford these two groups any opportunity to sit down together in person and discuss their differences.

The only people who will meet and talk with me largely agree that masks, Lockdown, and the general fear over Covid-19 are out of balance with the threat. The hazard of groupthink among this minority seems just as dangerous as among those who would sit in front of their TVs and believe the talking heads. We share belief-confirming articles and podcasts and generally support one another with a confidence that we are sane in an insane world.

I’m uneasy when everyone agrees.

I don’t read a lot of the mainstream articles. I haven’t for years. I was a nerdy teenager watching Newt Gingrich give a speech on the House floor on C-SPAN one night after busing tables in the 90s. The next day I heard a media outlet clearly twist his words with clever editing. Then there was the Summer of the Shark in 2001 when shark attacks were slightly down from the previous year, but they were the biggest story until the terrorist attacks of 9/11. It was an embarrassingly long time before I finally took the red pill and saw both the “Right” and “Left” corporate media for the mainstream narrative parrots that they are.

There’s a joke about taking just one red pill, not the whole bottle. I’ve probably taken two or three. I don’t go in for half measures and corporate media, public education, and mainstream narratives have never treated me well.

I certainly haven’t slipped into conspiratorial thinking, but I like listening to those who have, their insights can be more valuable than anything you’ll find in the approved mouthpieces.

Have I fallen into a type of groupthink? I don’t think so. Before finding this new social circle, I lost connections with too many communities: homeschool, faith, and family. I was in the dumps because I was an outlier in my Lockdown skepticism. I’m feeling the weight of depression again. The path I’ve chosen sucks. I hope that’s an indicator that even if I am wrong, I’m no victim of groupthink.

The media that got me on this kick:

Joe Rogan and Alex Berenson

The Science and History of Masks in Medicine

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Hypocrisy is Fine by Me

I don’t care about the hypocrisy, it comes with the territory when you choose to work with the government. One day, you find yourself breaking the rules you represent because the rules (i.e., regulations, laws, mandates, dictates, edicts) are impossible to follow consistently over time.

What you need to know is that people who have access to the best information, all the qualifications, and are being paid to be the experts are not worried about a “novel” virus killing them nor their loved ones.

Watch their actions. This threat is overblown.

https://nypost.com/2020/12/20/birx-went-to-florida-on-thanksgiving-despite-her-travel-warnings/

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Not Good Strange Times

There are moments when things feel almost right. Moments when we’re with the right people at the right place. Even then, in picture perfect scenes, the shadows of a twisted reality creep across our path.

Yesterday, we met a home educating family at Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library for fun and exploring in the snow. Snowball fights, storytelling, nature appreciation, and my sons’ love of getting away from the grown ups ruled the children’s day.

We’ve been friends for years and probably share more common interests with them than any other family I know. The kids love each other, I’ve played innumerable hours of soccer with the dad, and the mom has been one of my best spiritual and emotional supports in widowhood.

The mom and I walked and talked at a healthy distance from our rabblerousers and couldn’t seem to stay off of sad topics. My recent breakup, wrestling with depression, the aggravations of Zoom school (they are educationally diverse), and the unreality we are experiencing.

We only saw another dozen or so people during hours in the thousand-acre expanse, but they were mostly masked. Couples, hundreds of yards from other humans, walking along with their faces covered. There was no breeze and the sun was brilliantly warming, although the air was chill. It’s troubling and scary that this behaviour is being normalized. This particular oddity of covering our skin from the vitamin D-producing sunlight our bodies so desperately need to stay healthy is worrisome. We’ve known for months that vitmin D deficiency is rampant in hospitalizations. It is difficult to get the necessary exposure to sun in the winter, why are we covering our faces?

I take heart in the example we’re setting for our children. We teach them that health and freedom are not mutually exclusive. We teach them that health is an individual responsibility. We teach them that you must first care for yourself before you can be able to care for others. More importantly, we model these principles in our own words and actions.

In March of this year, just as the world was turning to fear and I watched fellow Christians recede from one another, I had the opportunity to help a homeless family. The mom wasn’t feeling well and needed to be seen by a doctor. Her children and mine piled into my minivan and we headed to an urgent care in heavy morning rain. It wasn’t open yet, so she asked to go to the bus stop to get to a hospital. She wasn’t in need of emergency care, but that was her only option. I almost dropped them off at the bus stop, but thought better of it. I insisted on driving her to the hospital and she begrudgingly acquiesced, her pride was worn from little sleep and respiratory distress.

I didn’t think about being in danger. I didn’t think I was putting my children in harm’s way. It felt much more dangerous to walk away, or leave them at a bus stop.

Later, I Iearned that she had a strep infection. My wife and sons had suffered strep infections two years previous and she didn’t survive. Maybe we survived in order to help that mom. I don’t know.

I don’t know why we’re hiding from each other now. Maybe people need the illusion of safety and security to go about their lives. I don’t ever remember being blinded by that lie, but going through tragedy has stripped away the delusion that existence isn’t integrally bounded by suffering.

Today, I’m going to do my best to accept neccessary suffering and work to relieve unnecessary suffering in myself and others.