The blahs—or feeling numb

Not feeling my perkiest this morning, so I stayed home and “went” to church on the computer. Sigh. Always makes me wish I was there in the richness of the University Christian Church sanctuary and the comfort of the congregation. It’s a joy to greet old friends on Sunday morning, and I missed that. A timely sermon, ”Possessed by Possessions,” on money, greed, wealth, affluenza—yes, the ministeer used that term. Timely because a dear friend had just this week predicted to me that the current sitting president will be re-elected in spite of his lies, deceit, cruelty, destruction of everything from international treaties to the environment. “It’s all about money,” she said. I guess I’m Pollyanna, but I could not live with myself if I supported someone like that because I thought it would make me rich. Besides, to my understanding, those who vote for the orange man because of their pocketbook are fooling themselves—the economy is not doing well. Indexes like job growth have slowed dramatically and the deficit is out the roof. But I digress.

Hymns draw me to church. I love to sing the old familiar hymns, and most of the words come to me from memory implanted in childhood. But these days they do away with the old familiar—Betty, my organist friend, won’t play “The Old Rugged Cross”—and they change either the words or melody. Not much is as frustrating as singing a strange hymn and realizing that the melody has other words, an older version my memory calls up. This morning the closing hymn was “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.” I waited with anticipation—but it was the wrong melody.

My organist friend is concerned at the changing nature of music she is asked to play at weddings. She was taught that only sacred music belongs in a sanctuary and was distressed recently when asked to play an Elton John song. My argument that music, like language, is an organic, growing, changing thing fell on deaf ears. And now I hear myself being as deaf about changing lyrics and melodies of my favorite hymns. Go figure.

My inspiration for the day: a 101-year-old woman, assisted living resident, who just published her first book of poetry. A fellow resident, her age, got her interested in attending some classes and pouf! She wrote a book. Would that it were that easy for all of us.

I used to watch “Restaurant Impossible” on the Food Network with fair regularity. Haven’t seen it in quite a while, so I don’t know if it’s gone away and come back or if I just haven’t happened on to it. But last night I watched back-to-back episodes—the first a black mother-and-daughter team in a family restaurant, and the second a Mexican restaurant. Robert Irvine pointed out that the mother and daughter were buying prepared things which ran up their costs. “You’re letting someone else do you prep work,” he thundered. And he showed them some great-looking twists on ordinary dishes. In the second episode, I couldn’t help noticing that when he was interacting with the owners, his hair was dark. But in narrative segments, with him alone, it was gray. I guess even chefs age.

Like the rest of the nation, I am numb with horror tonight. There’s so much to be said, but it’s all been said before—and to no avail. I weep for America, but I still also have faith that we can save our nation. It will be a slow rebuilding. But I read somewhere that the next election is not so much about who leads the country—it is about saving the soul of our country. I’m ready for that fight, and I will do whatever I can to save our country—and our planet.