“Spend All You Have for Loveliness”

Loveliness? “Buy it and never count the cost,” writes poet Sara Teasdale. Spring 2022 nears. May this third springtime be the charm.

The pandemic halted life as we knew it in March 2020. In its roiling, continuing destruction, social problems took center stage. Systemic racism and sexism, police brutality, the manic splatter of crazed misinformation, public education in peril. Now, Ukraine. Ukraine. Kenya’s Martin Kumani, speaking at the U. N. Security Council, delivers a calm, two-minute history lesson. Ukraine. Tanks roll in. Terror rolls out. Sometimes conscious and always there, a flicker of panic burns. Triumph, peace.

An alarming pileup of issues scream for our attention. Global emergencies abound, from proof of the climate crisis to spread of the poverty epidemic. How to live? What to do?

“Exercise yourself then in what lies in your power” (Epictetus, Enchiridion). Hello, ancient pal, what took you so long—haven’t we been friends since college? I hid my solo delight when introduced to Stoicism—both teacher and classmates depressed by Epictetus’s narrow view of human control. What’s up to me? What’s up to you? “…In a word, everything which is our own doing” (Enchiridion). Be rational. Think. That’s it, Epictetus? How oddly liberating, my conveniently lengthening list of things not in my control. Do I control anything? Yes, my complete freedom exists within the small circumference of my life. I own my choices. Who was I? Who am I? Who will I become? Alone in the cockpit of my life, selecting from options in the control panel always remains my responsibility.

Is there much to learn about Ukraine? Yes. Will I look for organizations providing medical relief such as the International Red Cross? Yes. Today, for my medicine I turn to good news that’s so much more than fit to print. Fill social media with these stories. Shout them out.

“What struck me…was how happy he seemed with his life” (Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains). Kidder paints the usual depiction of beloved Dr. Paul Farmer, a description echoed by everyone who knew this traveling healer. Dr. Farmer and the desperately poor belonged to each other—from Haiti to Siberia to Peru to Somalia, on to Massachusetts during the pandemic. Humble, brilliant, compassionate, a joyful savior of millions, he reminds us “the only real nation is humanity” (Mountains Beyond Mountains). Dr. Farmer’s charitable foundation, Partners in Health, supported by an ever-growing global network, extends the loving doctor’s everlasting reach.

Drs. Maria Elena Bottazzi and Peter Hotez, heads and hearts together, whip up a patent-free vaccine in their Houston laboratory. These immunology pioneers, ignoring profit while bashing inequity, offer their low-cost vaccine to the world. Kenya’s Martin Kimani speaks to this delightfully modest pair: “You are providing sorely needed ethical and scientific leadership.” India, Bangladesh, South Africa, Botswana, Taiwan, Vietnam—a billion unvaccinated people hopefully won’t wait much longer. Simply put, halting a global pandemic requires global vaccination. Steven Thrasher decries the appalling lack of pandemic rationality in his article in the “Scientific American.” Repeatedly he stands in for Epictetus, asking: “Is it rational?” Not only is it not rational, but Thrasher makes this case: “It’s not ethical to manufacture a viral underclass.”

Off to Alabama to visit staff members at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Headquartered in Montgomery across from the Civil Rights Memorial Center, SPLC’s initiatives include combating online extremism and deadly mass incarceration in the Deep South. Black students in Orlando acquire activist education and training on the value of redistricting. Tenants facing eviction at gunpoint find assistance in Decatur, GA while asylum seekers fearing wrongful deportation turn to SPLC. President Margaret Huang quotes Maya Angelou: “Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet.”

Want a bracing dose of “some good news you probably didn’t hear about?” Feast on “Future Crunch.” Clean energy in Australia, indigenous rights in Ecuador and Washington State, hybrid and electric vehicles on the move—bike paths in the Philippines, end to commercial whaling in Iceland, US federal protection for gray wolves. Global upswinging.

Walt Whitman’s concludes for us all. “As to me, I know nothing else but miracles.” Human limbs and fishes’ swims, farmers and mechanics, rocks and waves—he encourages us to soak up all the “Miracles.” Savor with Walt “…the exquisite, delicate, thin curves of the new-moon in spring.”

Anticipating that first deep breath of spring, let’s count with poet Sara Teasdale “many a year of strife well lost.” Strife blows away in joy’s headwind. Redeem your wagers on hope. Indulge in loveliness.

On the up and up, “Things Are Getting Better,” Cannonball Adderley and Milt Jackson play along with us. His saxophone measuring “How High the Moon,” Sonny Rollins scales the heights. Listen in, “somewhere there’s music.” Look up, “somewhere there’s heaven.”

Your heart and “My Heart,” Neil Young’s piano and pledge: “Someday someone / Has a dream come true.”

photo credit: Amber Capron

“Things are going to get easier…brighter…lighter.” Who’s gonna argue with Nina Simone? “O-o-h, Child,” o-o-h, o-o-h, guess what? “We’ll walk together in the rays of a beautiful sun.”

Give it and get it. Leave it and let it. Be.

O-o-h.

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