We should be in Israel today. Somewhere in the Galilee either on a boat sailing across Lake Kineret or eating St. Peter’s Fish in a restaurant on the shore. Instead, like many of us, I don’t even know what day it is. On Monday, one of my grandchildren texted me it was National Weed Day. So, given that I have so much to fill up my days, I decided to look it up. Is April 20^th really National Weed Day and if so, how did it get that way?

According to CNN, quoting as a source, the curator of the Marijuana Museum in Oakland, CA, there are several different interpretations of its origins. The one they like the best uses the numerical equivalent of the date 4/20. It seems that a group of high school students at San Rafael High School in Marin County used to meet at 4:20 after school under the statue of Louis Pasteur to get high every day. It was a perfect time. School was over for the day and their parents weren’t home yet. The time became a code for them, and it slowly spread across California becoming eventually the number of the California Senate Bill that established the Medical Marijuana program in the state. Who knew and this is facetious but how come my grandchild did?

That night as the sun set it was Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day. If we were in Israel, the plans were that like many in Israel, we would wait for the siren and get off the bus, standing quietly, reflectively, inwardly allowing the sound to pierce our sadness as we remembered 6 million. How efficient the Nazi killing machine and how impotent or callous the world to stop it. But we’re not. We are home like you, sheltered in place, washing our hands, concerned about microbes we cannot see and wondering where we go from here and what tomorrow will look like.

Well tomorrow was Earth Day (which is today), the 50^th anniversary. 4/22. I know I am having a hard time with it all. I also know that I am relatively doing fine with it all. (not Earth Day – the isolation – the quarantine – the social distancing). Whatever we call it, I am blessed to be healthy; I am grateful to have more than I need; I am fortunate (too weak a word here) to be on this journey with Eileen; I am alternatively also going crazy and wondering what’s next and what time the 6:30 news is.

On the Earth Day website they offer 30 “eco-friendly” activities which they call “isolutions”. https://www.earthday.org/resolutions-isolutions-for-coronavirus-self-isolation/ They are good for the earth and good for us. Speaking of good for us. One of the questions that demand our attention is what this experience is teaching us. I am going to broadly (very) paraphrase an OpEd piece in the NY Times on Easter. It talked about God in this pandemic. The insight that resonated with me was that God is in the lessons we take from this. The lessons can be personal (I need to work on my alone time); the lessons can be global (the world is so much smaller than we ever conceived humbled by a virus we cannot even see and which knows no boundaries or borders.) The lessons can be political. Oh do we need a leader with vision and integrity. One whom we can believe again. One whom we can trust to care about the least among us.

I guess that’s why I am reading “The Splendid and the Vile.” by Erik Larson. It’s about Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz. It is a story of courage and leadership.

It is a story we need right now.