All Categories - trish hermanson

Who Ya Gonna Fool on April 1?

3/31/2020

April Fool’s Day is upon us, and even in this serious Age of Coronavirus, I’m on the alert for what might happen. In the past, I’ve found my underwear drawer empty or pine cones in my bed.    That’s nothing compared to a BBC broadcast showing Swiss farmers harvesting fresh-grown spaghetti from trees. People called in asking where they could buy these plants.
     Who can believe anything anymore? Cats playing piano - I believe that. A politician apologizing - I don’t believe that.
      One thing you can believe is that humor is healthy. Gelotology, the study of laughter, has determined that a guffaw is good medicine. So here’s my April Fool’s Day blessing:
     May your pranks be painless, your laughter sublime. Your pleasure sweet, like a soft ringing chime. But thoughts escape me, I’ve run out of rhyme. So I’ll end this here 'cause it ain't worth a dime.

What Are We Worth in the Age of Corona

3/30/2020

   In this Age of Coronavirus, some are already calling for the most vulnerable to go back to work as a patriotic way to protect younger Americans while boosting the employment rate. So the question arises: what has priority, the health of individuals, or the health of the economy? Those in power face that frightening choice.
     Don’t those who call for an early release back to work realize this could spread the pandemic, thus increasing job losses?
And have they forgotten that everyone, whether young or old, is significant? There NEVER will be another person exactly like you or me in all of human history. We’re not happenstance. We’re custom designed, down to the genes in our jeans.
     “Naw,” you might say. “I’m a product of survival of the fittest.” Not me, baby. I’m not fit enough to make that cut.
     “I’m an evolutionary coincidence.” But who made the incidence “co?”
     The awesome truth is that we’re God-created to live with a purpose that includes working, but much more, too.
     Let me be clear: God so loved the world, not the employment rate, that he gave his only Son so we wouldn’t perish without knowing our Designer, but would have eternal life (The Bible, John 3:16). That’s what was askew with an April 12 date to return to work. Easter is not the deadline to resurrect the economy, it’s the lifeline to resurrect souls.
  We’re each worth more than any nation’s gross domestic product, and when it’s safe, we’ll rebuild the economy.

What Monet Taught Me about Coronavirus

3/25/2020

Denver is in lock-down now, and social distancing isn't helping to flatten my curve - I’ve gained three pounds because I’m eating more and exercising less. In my coop here, I’m trying not to be Chicken Little yelling, “The sky is falling.” Even though it is.
     When I stop flapping my wings long enough, I recall a painting by Impressionist artist Claude Monet I observed at an exhibit prior to this pestilence. Monet looked out his London hotel window toward a bridge shrouded by belching smokestacks. He was awestruck by the translucent beauty of smoggy fog reflected on the river.
     We’re living in the fog of facts and the smog of fear today. Yet there’s a translucent beauty. People caring about others. Forgiveness extended when we get testy - and we do. And good humor (“There’s a new strain of COVID-19 from touching old typewriters. It’s called Smith-Corona virus.”).
     A friend emailed some of us who are isolated. “Encouragement isn’t limited by space. We have our phones, computers, and prayers to be ‘social’ and connect.”
     That’s good advice when the bridges that carried us on daily routines are shrouded, even closed. We don’t have to let this plague beat us down. We can build each other up with purposeful acts of kindness - even from a distance.
  What can I do today to encourage someone?

Turning Our Insecurities into Groceries

3/21/2020

Grocers - among our new national heroes! But still no toilet paper at this Costco I visited in the morning when it first opened. People were tossing paper towels into their carts. Do they plan to saw it up and use it for TP?
     Who would have imagined that TP would become the new American collectible? Elsewhere in Denver, a cop broke up three women fighting over some precious rolls. But we’re all taking inventory because the average American uses 100 rolls per year.
     As I’m waiting in line to check out, I study what others stash in their carts as “essential” items. One man stocked up on beer, vodka, muffins, and cookies. He may not even remember this pestilence once it’s passed.
  I want to remember every lesson I learn from these uncertain times. Lessons about the importance of simple things like toilet paper, the fragility of life, the value of each other, and that in ways I don’t fully understand, God’s got this.

Stay Calm and Buy Toilet Paper (if you can)

3/15/2020

I checked at four stores for toilet paper and found nothing but empty shelves and folks with glazed eyes throwing anything they could into their carts to give them a sense of control during this coronavirus pandemic.
     One man was stocking up on water in case the plumbing to his home failed. Have we all gone cuckoo?
     Social distancing is good to flatten the curve of the spread of this pathogen, but we’ve got to flatten the curve of craziness, too. We need to stay calm. And even as we isolate, we must make sure our neighbors are okay, even if that means sharing some squares of our precious toilet paper.
     So if someone comes to mind, I’m asking myself whether this is a God-prompt to call, email, or text them. And if I feel lonely, someone else probably does, too. Who might I reach out to?
     Perhaps President Franklin Roosevelt’s admonition to Americans during the Great Depression is fitting: “…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
  Coronavirus isn’t the only bug that can steal our health. Fear can, too.