Thirty-six minutes. That’s how long it took me to run 5K today. I am getting back into the swing of it. I had been running consistently before the school year started last August, but, with my focus on mastering my career, running had just not been happening. Now, though, since I don’t have to rush home to meet our kids off the bus, and hustle with the evening routine, or take them to extra-curricular activities – and since the professor-husband is home, too, all the time now – I DO have a bit more time. So, I have been using some of the time to get back into running.

During my run today, I was thinking about the below tweet from Trillia Newbell:

I’ve been taking walks in the hood every day during this quarantine – by myself at times, and with my kids every time. Sometimes I get two walks in a day; a longer walk or run by myself (for the sake of my sanity), and a shorter walk with the kids (or a longer one if I didn’t have one by myself). Usually this walking happens after everyone – everyone of the kids, anyway – is done with their digital learning day work. It’s a bit of a recess and a time for exercise. Sometimes the kids play in the driveway afterward. I think this is the most exercise the middle-schoolers have gotten in a long time. Sadly, in our American public society, we don’t believe in exercise and playtime enough to put it into the curriculum of middle, high school, and college… or even to include it in our adult work schedules. We would work so much more efficiently, I am certain of that, if we had time to play and exercise every day. …

The above video alludes to the scene in Titanic when the ship is sinking, people are panicking and jumping ship, and in the midst of it all, a trio of musicians plays on. While this video is supposed to be funny (and it is funny), I am finding it kind of prophetic for my own role (and maybe your role, too?) in the midst of this pandemic. This morning I read from the Bible in Matthew 4:23 again (I moved into Matthew 5, too, which is Jesus’ sermon on the mount). But, my soul clung to, specifically in 4:23, where it says “proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.” The word “gospel” as we may or may not know, means “good news”, and “the kingdom” is the kingdom of God, or the heavenly kingdom. And my mind wandered to the news that I’ve been reading over the past couple of days. I’ve been reading news by the New York Times of the kingdoms from all over the world. Some of the news has been good or …

My thoughts from yesterday are not yet complete, but I’ll move on from them and work out some other thoughts that have been going through my mind. This is just to show to my students (and to myself) that it’s okay to have unfinished writing, or half-ideas laying around that I can go back to later and edit and finish. I have to admit that I, personally, am enjoying these digital learning days. No, I am not enjoying the fact that we have to do this because there is an ominous threat of sickness and death looming in the atmosphere, and that many people have died. No, I am not enjoying the fact that many people are isolated from the comfort of loved ones. Honestly, and I am just being real, I am mostly enjoying it because it is a time that I can get away from the pressures of an often unsympathetic, impatient, and unloving system. Another reason I am enjoying it is because it is allowing me time to slow down, and as …

Yesterday I read a Tweet by Propaganda – a hip-hop artist living in California: I am inclined to be a person of faith and place my confidence in God and continue to go about my life like normal in all of this. Quite honestly. But, I’m not someone to go around and proclaim that, or to condemn others for “social distancing”. In fact, I have to say he’s right. I – a person of faith – DO wear seat belts. And of course, when our children were babies, we put them in car seats. We don’t have home security, but we surely lock our doors (even our garage door – you know, the one leading from the garage to the house) really good every night. So, if we are so concerned about our safety and security in these ways, why would we not be concerned about safety and security in this COVID-19 epidemic also? Why is it bad for us “people of faith” to take precautions like the rest of the general population? Is it …