Do all the good you can

Methodism in a time of hollerin'

Hey kid,

You are going to be a stronger adult than I ever was. This week has been proof.

I was 26 when 9/11 happened. I was 33 when the global real estate meltdown cracked our foundations.

You’re nine right now.

These events were instant, traumatic shock with immediate economic after-effects and a years-long reconfiguring of our private and public lives. They’re events from which some aspects of our country have not fully recovered. 

I processed all this as an adult. It helped that it was still OK to gather in large and small groups. To go out, to see a movie, to visit a bar, to hug people, to make out. 

And now there’s this. A real estate crisis and 9/11 all rolled into one that we’re working through via Zoom video chats.

You’re nine.

We were something like two days into this whole thing when you screamed “I HATE THE CORONAVIRUS! IT MAKES EVERYTHING SO BORING!”

Which is fair. 

It’s bizarre to think about how our country didn’t move fast enough to respond to COVID-19 and then it radically changed everyone’s lives in a near-instant. 

You’re nine years old.

How much of this is going to frame the rest of your life? The world you grow up in? Does it ever become a distant historical moment your grandkids learn about in school or hear about at Thanksgiving? Like polio in the early 20th century?

People are working remotely, your school is canceled, the Governor says we should all stay home (we should! And are!), and everyone is figuring out how to position their laptop or cell phone for the most natural light and the best angles. (Yesterday as I was jumping on a work call after making a grocery run for a friend, I discovered I look amazing sitting in our car while parked in the driveway. No wonder Jerry Seinfeld has that webseries.)

The challenge right now - the thing we absolutely have to do - is to resist the urge to only see as far as our arms can stretch, to only look within our own homes, to only gaze down our own blocks. 

Normally, I’m the first one to say change starts just outside your front door, right where you live, and in your own neighborhood. Watching local governments step up with immediate resources and seeing state governors lead in a time when the federal government has an “OUT TO LUNCH” sign on the White House shows just how true that is. 

But in a time when we are returning to our homes, it’s easier than ever to turn to those close to us for help. So we have to look beyond our immediate circumstances to see what kind of help those far away from us need.

I'm struggling with all this, just like you are. But in my clearer-headed moments, I'm trying to focus on those who don't have the access, the privilege, and the resources to be well in times like these.

So here’s what I want you to take with you right now - and in future moments when you are satisfied with your health, wealth, and means:

“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”

It’s a quote of unknown origin, though many attribute it to John Wesley, a Methodist. (It is here I would point out that Methodism was a revival movement within the 18th Century Anglican Church, which - once again - means Anglicans/Episcopalians rule.) You’d like the fact that Wesley supported women as preachers. And one of your faves, Hillary Clinton, uses this quote a lot.  

It’s an idea I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about lately. The way it’s taken to an extreme in the work of Peter Singer (who gives a wonderful interview here) or used as the basis of some truly great TV like The Good Place. 

In the most immediate, it means we find a way to be OK with isolating ourselves, even if we’re not experiencing symptoms. In seven minutes, Dr. Emily Landon from the University of Chicago talked about this like a storyteller, which is exactly what we needed. 

“The most good,” in this case, looks a lot like “doing nothing.” As she says, if “nothing happened” then we won.

Beyond this, I want you to think about the people who aren’t like you whose jobs have already been threatened or lost. The ones who depend on people going out. The hair stylists, the servers, the bartenders, the house cleaners, the piano teachers. 

How in a time of reduced public resources, the people like us who already have so much, aren’t taking from those who have the most need.

Living outside yourself, even as you’re forced inside, is an expression of hope. I was reminded of this today by something a friend shared. It’s a quote by writer Rebecca Solnit, from her 2016 book of essays, Hope In The Dark: 

“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.”

Let’s remember this feeling after this storm passes. And look to break down doors once it’s OK to be out and about again. 

If you need me, I’ll be in the driveway.

Love,
Your Dad