Eschaton and testing for Covid-19

Posted on March 21, 2020 by Elea Lee

About a month ago I spent a day dragging my family through a crash course in coronavirus. It was appalling.

The range of symptoms is highly variable.
Carriers can be asymptomatic.
With over 200 mutating strains, the range of severity in this disease can be highly variable.
A person can be exposed to the mild strains, and still get hit by a secondary, more severe infection.

We put too much emphasis on testing. Testing would be great only if there were limitless tests and the tests were far more reliable than they are. If that were the case then we should all follow a protocol of weekly prophylactic testing.

Not feasible right now.

A few years ago my family started to play a modified version of a very complicated fictional tennis game from David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. His version was very apocalyptic (fitting); ours was as well but with a fraction of the complexity.

In our version two teams of as many people as you have (evenly divided, of course) face each other on either side of the net. We divided as many balls as we could muster and started hitting them across the net relentlessly. The opposing team did the same. At a predetermined point (like music chairs), we would pause the game. The team with fewer balls on their side won that round and then we would continue.

Great cardio workout. Quickly exhausting.

That is coronavirus. We will all face an onslaught of a relentlessly moving, mutating virus which can spread quickly, if not effortlessly, through contact and fomite transmission.

Eschaton is a fun game.

This is not. But if I know one thing about how to “win” at eschaton, it is organize your team and don’t stop lobbing the balls back across the net.

We don’t play eschaton right now. Our tennis court is closed. That is a good thing. The best way to “win” at this is to assume we are all spreaders and keep us all

Six feet apart.

Pray. Pray because our lives depend on it. Imagine what a simple game of eschaton would look like if

God were clearly on

The winning side.

Matthew 17:20-21 KJV

[20] And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. [21] Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

And all the pleasant pictures

Posted on March 18, 2020 by Elea Lee

I have been having the mildest of stress dreams–quirky, bureaucratic hotel check ins, attempts to gather the hard-to-shepherd, things washed away. I know why the dreams have come, and I doubt they will leave me soon, even if the heat and intensity of a gathering sun should cause them to lose their inevitable grip and dissipate

I turn to morning songs and croak out broken praises

Think I should listen to the Gospel, but chose Isaiah instead

Because these are old

And New Testament times

And we are all in wont

of fierce faces

Isaiah 2:16 KJV

[16] And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.

Staring at the Door

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Elea Lee

I draw lines transecting the doorway

Vertical then horizontal

Drab, heavy old thing

I cannot open it, cannot move it toward me, as in this scenario I would have no opposable

Thumbs, thumbs dug into the wet clay of our terrible

Mortality

While You

Let me through every time

To this endless deep

Expanse of night, the wind, the grieving girl who would

Tell you never leave

One Goodbye, One Goodnight

Posted on March 7, 2020 by Elea Lee

Oh, darling, spring

Takes ahold a little

More each day

In the leaves over us, in the moon through the branches of this

Place you have been

All these years I

Will miss you

Welcome Home, Antarctic Explorers!

Posted on March 3, 2020 by Elea Lee

I was there when you packed your bags, when you got the passport pictures, (the garrulous postal employee who took them was a highlight!). I was there for all the worry–the mama worry–and there for the day when we drove to the airport all together

To see you off to

Great Adventure!

Despite all my trepidations, I was excited for all of you. I thought this will be cool and said take lots of pictures!

I went in with my eyes wide open

Too many emails back and forth with grownups

getting paid a lot to take you there

Not Mothers Teresas at all

But I didn’t expect this

The lonely road home

The uphill battle just to get you back home

You are home now, darlings

And never let anyone tell you

You are worth anything less than the whole world entire

I would tell you

If I could stand in every airport in the world

Homemade Sign held high and goofily askew

Letters spelt out–

💜WELCOME HOME, ANTARCTIC EXPLORERS!!💙

You mean the world to me

Winged Victory

Posted on February 21, 2020 by Elea Lee

When I was very young we were in Paris and the street vendor said we should buy a small tinny replica of Winged Victory. My mother demurred, said we were going to see “the real thing.”

When we walked into the Louvre and she pointed to it—massive, majestic, breathtaking. I asked how much did that one cost?

She said priceless.

You are my real thing, far more priceless than Winged Victory

The Feast of Thorns

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Elea Lee

Long before our terrible story your birthday was already

the feast of Servites pruning winter roses. I cling to that now, all the other days this day could be:

Obstinate mountains lumber into obeisant seas

Lame men whole, blind men see

Dead men rise and shake off their shroudy bindings

impossible things all around ya

If only you will

See

There All Along

Posted on February 15, 2020 by Elea Lee

By Ben Lee

I walk these streets and think

My love

But you are not here

I look for you

Around corners

In the cracks of ancient bricks

I descend the hill listening for you

I find the top of the mountain

Look back

At all I’ve traveled

And realize you were with me all along

The Invisible World

Posted on February 14, 2020 by Elea Lee

Not often enough

Do I think about the light I cannot see

The whole beings made of it who

Could be standing right beside me

defined by light not visible to me

Or smell, or touch or sound or taste

All senses which could be

Stronger somehow–

A male polar bear can smell a mate from 100 hundred miles away

Sharks can smell single droplets of

Blood in the water miles away

What portion of my human brain is cordoned off for

My sense of Love? How far, how long, how wide a net

Will you cast for me?

Writer’s Block

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Elea Lee

I learned a long time ago that even a child can have dark spots, scorched places where

Love should have been

She writes to probe an old wound we share between us

A ghost who walks and spits and curses his proper Maker

What can I say?

What can I tell you that has not already transpired between us?

Only that God can tell a girl to go look

For her little sister (to play)

Then set the captives free

Carrying Light

Words for light

Category Archives: God