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An
essay of late
October 2020
A
version of this was written for a church writers ' group in
Memphis, TN, where I am an interfaith activist, and another
version was included in my interfaith newsletter
there. If you are reading it in the
distant future, the context is the worldwide Coronavirus
pandemic of 2020 and the Trump-Biden election of November 2020.
(picture
– small figure
of person with pumpkin as head, pushing wheelbarrow through
light snow.)
The
coronavirus pandemic has caused the cancellation of Hallowe'en
Trick-or-Treating and most other Hallowe'en celebrations in most
places this year. Our village, New London, New Hampshire, has
encouraged people to erect "Pumpkin People" in their front yards
for the enjoyment of those walking or driving by. Many of the
exhibits are quite elaborate.
As you
see from this
photo of one figure in our exhibit, we’ve already had our first
snow in
central New Hampshire, five months and nine days after our last
snow in May. Heidi and I
plan to stay up here this winter –
expecting temperatures of 20 degrees below zero F, since there
is little coronavirus
here in the woods 15 miles north of the nearest McDonalds.
When I checked recently, 2% of US residents had been diagnosed
with coronavirus. In Shelby County. Tennessee (Memphis) it
was 3.6%, still much lower than in many other cities. In our
county. Merrimack County, New Hampshire, it was 0.2%.
Of
course Hallowe’en has largely had any religion
washed out of it in American observance; a few churches will
have a special
service or at least a paragraph of prayers recognizing “All
Saints Day” in the
Christian calendar. “Hallowed Eve” started as the evening before
All Saints
Day.
This time of year, this year, I’m more
aware of early November. The
rest of the
English-speaking world is more likely to put on costumes on
November 5 than on
Hallowe’en, to the sound of the poem
“Remember, remember, the Fifth of November
Gunpowder
treason and plot
I
see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should
ever be forgot”
This commemorates the effort by Guy
Fawkes and others to violently overthrow the government of
England in 1605. You
can find fuller explanations and other verses
of the poem by a
web search for “Guy
Fawkes”.
That
plot did involve considerable religious elements – England at
the time had
violence between Catholics and anti-Catholics.
This year, of course, we have the very real prospect of
violence in this
country around that date, due to statements by a prominent
individual
who has in my
opinion been
inciting violence against Blacks, Muslims, Mexicans, Chinese,
Jews,
and immigrants generally.
Do vote.
Lay in supplies so that you can stay home if necessary in
the days
following the election. I strongly urge people to stay away from
demonstrations, for health and safety reasons, until things calm
down, and stay home after dark. Write
letters, make phone calls, stay in
close touch with shut-in friends, but there is a real risk that
it will not
be a good time to
be out in the streets
or in meetings or at houses of worship. I hope and pray that I
am wrong, but be prepared.
I’ll try to switch to a lighter note. Many of you have met our small dog Molly, who recently turned two years old, and is very popular in the houses of worship she has attended with us. In one of her public appearances she walked in a demonstration as shown in this picture (small dog wearing sandwich boards saying “Defund Dogcatchers”)
There is a point here, of course: it is
hard to put a major issue into a small slogan. Many people this
year carrying signs saying "Defund Police" did not want police
forces abolished, they wanted them better regulated, and wanted
some issues funded better and funded through other
agencies (e.g. some aspects of dealing with domestic
violence and drug addiction).
And there had been a major scene this year with President
Trump improperly having Federal forces clear demonstrators
from Lafayette Park in Washington. Molly’s objection,
I explained to many people, was to Presidents who used Federal
forces
domestically to harrass innocent animals. There
are in fact instances of Presidents doing that. In one story, in
1902 a bear
was clubbed for the entertainment President Teddy Roosevelt.
Teddy objected, and
reportedly had a bear brought to the Washington, D.C., zoo – the
original “Teddy Bear”. An
event I have personal memory of – I lived
in Washington DC at the time - was when President Eisenhower in
1953 objected to the
squirrels on the While House Lawn carrying off his golf balls;
perhaps they
thought they were edible nuts. he had the squirrels rounded up
and moved to Rock Creek Park.
When it was pointed out that the White House lawn was legally
National Park
property and the animals there were legally protected,
Eisenhower was forced to have
men go out and round up an equal number of squirrels in Rock
Creek Park and bring them back to the
White House lawn. Presidents
can,
sometimes, be pressured into obeying the law.
There is also, on
this website, http://ordman.net/Edward/Sausalito_Pet.html,
a 1960’s story of the Coast Guard forcibly removing a
law-abiding sea lion, but I make
no claim of presidential involvement in that one. If Ronald
Reagan was involved in that one (unlikely) it was in his
role as Governor of California.