Peace Notes is here to bring you some uplifting news during this Covid 19 pandemic as well as keep you up to date on what is happening at Peace and within the United Methodist Church.
Best Thing of the Week:
We are living by Covid time… This video reminds us how to live.
News from Peace
Peace Time: Sunday, May 17
I hope you have time this Sunday to sit down with your favorite morning beverage and a simple plate of food and “Open the Eyes of My Heart.”
Memorial Day Parade
On Sunday May 24, 2020 morning you are invited to participate in a Memorial Day Parade. This will be like our Easter Parade, but without the snow. And it will be a way for us to celebrate Memorial Day together while maintaining a healthy physical distance.
To participate:
1) Reply to this email so we can begin to develop a list of who will be participating in the parade.
2) Put two large signs identifying who you are on both sides of the car, possibly in both back seat windows or on outside doors. This will identify who is in the car to the people we will be visiting.
3) An email will be sent to those participating by Sunday morning at 8 am with route information, names and addresses of those we will be visiting. It will be important to bring the route information with you since there will be none available at Peace.
4) Show up at Peace by 10:00 am and stay in your car!
5) I anticipate we will wait for a few minutes, after all we live on Peace Time.
6) Each person or persons we visit will be given a phone call before we arrive so they can be at a window or door to be greeted as the Easter Parade passes by.
If you would like to participate in the Memorial Day Parade please email me at gary@peaceumc.com and let me know you would like to be part of the parade.
If you cannot participate in the Easter Parade, we would like to include you on our route. Please send me an email at gary@peaceumc.com saying, “Include me on the Memorial Day Parade route.” All of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area can be included in the parade route. If you live in Arizona, sorry. Almost everyone else is within the parade route parameters.
If you know of people who may benefit by being included on the route of the Memorial Day Parade please send me an email at gary@peaceumc.com saying, “Please include… on the Memorial Day Parade route, there address and phone number are…”
We will work out any kinks in planning the Memorial Day Parade next week.
Coronavirus Blues
by David Tidball
No – this is not an article about all of the things I am missing from my life of several months ago:
- The enjoyment of collaboration with all of my volunteer musician friends
- The possibility of attending our grandchildren’s sports events this summer
- Weekly suppers with my son’s family
No – this article is about why I think we are experiencing this pandemic in the ways that we are, what I wish we were learning, and my concern that we will settle for going back to “things the way they were.”
This pandemic has hit the human community much in the same way that pest outbreaks hit our mono-culture agricultural fields. At first, there is complete devastation. Then there is a frantic crusade to find a new pesticide that will destroy the new pest. This pesticide is then applied massively to the affected crops and we continue on our merry way – until the next crisis arises. This human agricultural cycle, while it exists IN nature is largely no longer OF nature. Our mass- produced crops are grown in fields that are largely human made outposts nourished and defended by human made products and systems.
This situation exists in our food production system because of human decisions to establish a relatively small number of plant species as rulers over most of the best land. This is a very significant break from the way that life has organized itself on earth over many millions of years. The organic farmer knows that this ancient life system is one of dense communities of life which both nurture and draw life from each other. A natural system is both a mad scramble of individual life forms to secure the resources necessary for them to thrive and its seeming opposite – a place where each life form contributes to the well-being of the whole. Such a system contains within itself at all times both the will and the means to deal with inevitable shocks – like a new virus. The cost is borne proportionally, and the whole community contributes to the efforts needed to establish a new equilibrium.
The human community has, of late, been building itself up much like its monoculture crop fields. Huge resources have been dedicated to relatively small parts of the community while massive sectors have been under resourced. These under resourced sectors of the human community have both borne the brunt of the suffering and allowed the virus fertile ground to propagate and spread. The redemption of the whole system depends on finding a new “cure.”
I, for one, do not want to go back to that monoculture human community. I want us to have the courage and the wisdom to build a human community that mimics the traditional natural communities that have flourished so well for so long on this planet. It will take massive resources of courage, compassion, humility and patience to work on this. These traits are traits of the human spirit – traits we can develop and use wisely or bury and continue to ignore.
Peace has been a place that has chosen to support and advocate for healthy human community. I hope that will continue. I hope you will forgive me for the times when I feel, like my Uncle Chuck used to say, that our efforts mostly add up to “shoveling flies across the room.”
United Methodist Happenings
Georgia shooting sparks call to end racism by United Methodist Leaders
https://www.umnews.org/en/news/georgia-shooting-sparks-call-to-end-racism
Grace Connections of the Week:
Grace connections invites you to find the power of God’s love in the midst of the harm, confusion and news of the week. Below are a few stories from the news of the week.
Video of the Week:
Stand by Me – THE COVID COLLECTIVE
Photos of the Week:
Our world re-engineered for social distancing
https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/our-world-re-engineered-for-social-dista-idUSRTX7HJBW
How long before we know if re-openings cause virus spikes?
https://apnews.com/d64d05d9a031f6f876276699cd5c89bd
Why this ICU nurse treating Covid patients could be deported
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52632880
How the world’s most dangerous bird got its unique feathers
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/world/cassowary-bird-feathers-scn/index.html