Two Perfect Lines
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
(supermoon eclipse)
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.
(From God's Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Culture Shock and COVID-19
After the months of watching COVID-19 roll west from China, like waves coming in that seem far away until suddenly they're knocking you over and pulling you under, it felt like life in the US changed overnight. Many of us have been groping for the words to use to describe what we're living through. Worldwide trauma, waking up in a dystopian movie, so weird, unfathomable. We try out different comparisons: is it like the influenza pandemic of 1918? like 9-11? like fighting in the US war with Vietnam? Each person, it seems, has their own story of when the crisis became real to them -- stories that I expect we'll be processing and listening to and talking about for years to come. More and more, the unfolding of this pandemic reminds me of my experiences living in China, only this time, it's like the entire world just got slammed down into a foreign country -- one that none of us chose to be in, one that we don't have a return ticket from (yet), one where som
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