Thank You God for the Promise of Spring! For the Crocuses Too.

Crocus: seasonal flowering plant, in the iris family; low growing with large white, yellow, and purple flowers. In colder climes, such as New England, croci are often the first plants to flower in the early spring.                                --gbif.org et al

Sixty-two springs and I still get excited when the signs of a new season appear. When this part of the world begins to turn away from winter and turns toward the fairest season of all, and begins to thaw out.

Spring. And it is springing right now, if not already sprung.

I know this by the appearance of delicate purple crocuses that are now pushing up through the chilly mud, to turn their flowery faces to whatever sun they might find in the sky.  One day in late March I walk by the patch of forlorn dirt by my front door, all mucky and covered with nothing but a few leftover leaves from last fall and maybe some “seen better days” mulch. Then I return home just one day later and there be the crocuses (or croci), often the very first plants to flower in the early spring, some years even courageously pushing up through the snow, as if to dare winter to stick around any longer.

You can feel spring in the air now, see it in the sky and even hear it in the atmosphere. The birds all seem to somehow sing a little louder, as if to reintroduce themselves to us, and when a patch of blue breaks through early April gray storm clouds, it seems all the bluer somehow.  And it is the peepers who act for me (maybe you too) as a sprightly and springly alarm clock, their high pitched chirping sounding like a one note chorus. These tiny frogs can be found and heard in wetlands and ponds. They emerge right about now and that peeping you hear is the mating call of the northern spring peeper. There may be no more evocative spring sound than this glee club amorous amphibians.

There’s always the boys of spring to herald this time of year and around here that would be the Boston Red Sox.  I must confess, given the Sox schizophrenic behavior the past few years, I have very mixed feelings about the Old Towne Team. Since 2018, they’ve won a World Series, but also finished dead last twice. What team shows up this spring? I have no idea. They don’t either. The BoSox are also now the most expensive ticket in Major League Baseball. For a group of four to go to a game at Fenway, it costs $324.37, for tix, parking, beer, and hot dogs, and that was as of last summer.  The good news is that there’s always the Worcester Red Sox, now playing just miles down the road. A $17 seat will get you a great view and baseball in its purer form.  Maybe that’s where I’ll head soon for the first game of the year.

Yes, there are so many ways to mark the transition from the chill to chilling out, from skis to shorts, from fireplace to fireflies. Like that first ride on the bike, thighs burning, lungs pumping, butt hurting and yet—thank you God for a new season. That’s spring.  As is putting up the storm windows and pulling down the screens and hopefully not getting a hernia in the process! And there’s all those other spring firsts too. First BBQ. First cold beer on a warm day. First mowing of the lawn, the sweet and familiar smell of fresh cut grass such an elixir.  First time in shorts—yup, those legs are pasty white! First hot dog at the park.  First t-shirt day.

Even as we emerge from a winter that was as wimpy as they come, still, it is such a gift from God to be transported by the sure movement of the earth and the position of the sun to a new time of year.  A new reality in a way. For me spring is when it seems as if anything is possible in this life, perhaps more so than at any other time of year.  Spring brings me hope. Spring reminds me that each day is filled with new possibilities.

In my faith tradition the holiday and holy day of Easter pushes back against the notion of final endings or dead stops. With the God I know, there is a forever eternal second chance waiting for us all, if only we have the courage to look for it and then to begin again. To allow the spirit of spring to reside in our hearts and souls is to imagine that no matter what our age or what our station in life, there is something young within all of us, that looks to tomorrow and imagines with excitement, “What if?!”

What in your life right now needs a little spring? A jump start? A pushing up through the soil and a bending up towards the light and the heat? What needs renewing in your soul, in your spirit, in your body? A grudge to be let go of.  A hurt to be forgiven or healed.  A love to be found or some love to be offered to one in great need. 

The days ahead offer all of these things and so much more.  Thanks, dear crocus. We missed you. Good to have you back. Good to be in the miracle called spring.  

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

Who Will We Rescue? Fat Cat Bankers or the Hungry? Guess.

Moral hazard (phrase) 1. the idea that if you save someone from the consequences of their actions, they take even bigger risks       --James Mackintosh, Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2023

Here’s what I don’t understand. And if you have the answer, please, chime in. Let me know.

To explain: a little more than a week ago the 16^th largest bank in the United States, the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB); it failed. They experienced a classic bank run. That’s where depositors rush to take money out of a bank for fear that they will lose that money to a bank failure. And it is such panic withdrawals that lead to failure. It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What led to the bank rush was SVB’s steep losses, because of its wrong bets on interest rates (they went up) and inflation (up as well), and also because the industry it was most invested in—high tech—has been on a sharp downward slide for the past year or so. That news, amplified by the instantaneous panic-spreading effect of social media, and it was a perfect storm for failure.  Thus, was and is the second largest bank collapse in United States history.

Now back to what confuses me. At first the feds said no bailout for folks who have above $250,000 in SVB, that is the limit the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), guarantees deposits. Up to that level, folks are covered. Beyond it? Theoretically, those depositors are out of luck. It is this incentive, in part, that is supposed to motivate bankers not to take big risks with folks’ money. But what if a bank thinks that at day’s end the federal government won’t let them fail? See 2008. Well, then they might become banking high rollers, and also bet that Uncle Sam will come through.  

Moral hazard.

So, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government is rescuing not one but two failed banks (SVB and Signature Bank). We’re told this will not cost taxpayers any money. Really? Really? I guess what angers and upsets me the most is how quick the feds seem to be at bailing out essentially well-heeled people and companies while at almost the exact same time, it is cutting back on food assistance programs for thirty-eight million people. Most of those hungry souls are the very old, the very young and the very poor.

Moral bankruptcy?

When COVID hit three years ago, the feds upped Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits by a minimum of $95 per month, for hungry individuals and families. Almost 14 million households (305,000 in Massachusetts) received this food lifeline.  SNAP is literally a lifesaver, but especially in the face of a global pandemic. On March 2^nd, all those extra funds ended. Congress chose not to renew the program and SNAP reverted back to pre-pandemic levels. Some families experienced a reduction of up to 50 percent. This while food inflation in the past year has been running at 10 percent.

SNAP isn’t cheap. With the added benefits the United States spent almost $120 billion last year to help put food on our neighbors’ table, and maybe on our own table too. For perspective: SVB will be covered for about $110 billion in its losses. The proposed Defense Budget for 2022 was $728 billion. The maximum SNAP benefit in Massachusetts for a family of four was $835. That will now be greatly reduced. On average each hungry American who benefits from SNAP saw their assistance drop by $90 on March 2nd.

Back to what I don’t understand, especially as a person of faith….

Why are too many of us as Americans and our government as well, so often more sympathetic to people of means than to the people of little or no means? How come the media makes so visible the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and yet basically ignores the reality of what it is to live in poverty in this country? We lionize those who leverage capitalism for their own outsized gains. Politicians even compliment people who avoid paying their taxes by any means necessary.   

And the morality of poverty?

The truth is that although it usually unspoken, the opinion of some who have much is that the many who have little: well, it must be their fault, right? The poor and hungry don’t work hard enough or work long enough hours. They should have gone to college, right? Maybe you shouldn’t have had so many kids! Where’s the moral judgment for the banking high rollers whom Uncle Sam is coming to save? Yes, I get that helping failing banks helps more than just the fat cats but still: why are the well to do always the ones listened to the first, by our government?

It reminds me of what some cynically say is the real golden rule. Not “Love your neighbor.” Instead, “Those who have the gold make the rules.”  In one his most famous stories, Jesus tells his followers that whenever they serve another in this world who is hurting, in a very real way, they actually serve him. They serve God. “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat.”

Some things like human hunger and human greed? They never seem to change.

I just don’t understand it.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

Addendum: A short scene from the 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life” depicts with power and truth, just what a bank run and financial panic, looks like. Check it out. Here’s a link.

 

 

 

Our Youth In Mental Health Crisis: We Must Act NOW!

“And how are the children?” –traditional African social greeting

“Kasserian ingera?”

That’s how members of the Masai tribe in Africa greet each other when they meet. Instead of saying something like “How are you?” or “What’s new?” they instead ask their fellow tribesperson, “And how are the children?”  In the Masai tribe the belief is that the health of the village, the neighborhood, and the society is only as strong as the next generation. The well-being of the children is central to their identity, to how they judge the goodness of life.

“And how are the children?”

If I were to answer that question about the children and the youth of the United States right now, I would have to say, “Not so good. Not at all.”  For the truth is that coming out of COVID, out of almost three years of social isolation and hybrid schooling, too many of America’s kids are hurting, and badly. The hearts of our children and youth are battered. Their spirits are downtrodden. Their souls are bruised.

That’s not hyperbole.

In October of 2021, no less than the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association joined together to declare “A National State of Emergency in Children’s and Adolescent’s Mental Health.” As one mental health professional observed, “Children’s mental health has been a hidden pandemic for years; COVID…simply ignited a simmering problem…”

What’s the crisis look like? Suicide is the leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 34 in the United States, according to the CDC. In 2021 emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts were 51 percent higher for adolescent girls than in past years. In 2020, almost half (48%) of youth ages 14 to 24 years old reported feeling so sad or hopeless for two weeks or more, that they stopped doing some of their usual activities. That’s according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.  On top of this, according to the Journal of Public Health, 216,617 children and youth in the United States lost a caregiver to COVID, a Mom or Dad or an older sibling or a grandparent.

I know that for me, I look at the world our kids now live in and compare it to the one I called home, way back when, and it seems like to be a kid or a teenager in 2023: it is just harder. It is just more complicated. It is just busier and more intense, more filled with stress and when we add in what COVID did to all the social and community support structures in the lives of our children?

That’s why we are at a crisis point.

I know this because I see it, up close, right where I live and right where I work. Like the young adults I love who struggle with substance abuse or eating disorders. The middle school kids at church I lead at youth group who often live or die based upon what shows up about them (or not) on social media. There are the young people that my church comforted in their grief as they struggled to process the loss of a teenage friend who died in an awful car accident. There are the twenty somethings I know, who are so buried under student debt that they can barely make it. Or they work 24/7 or maybe even two jobs because it’s the only way to afford decent housing in the Boston area.

That’s even before COVID ratcheted up youth distress to unfathomable levels. Try finding a therapist for yourself, no matter for your child. The rooms are full, and the appointments are booked solid, so you’ll just have to wait.  Imagine how it is to be a kid going off to school while hearing about all the mass shootings in the hallways and classrooms of America.

And how are the children?

The children need us right now. Need us to care. Need us to advocate for more money for mental health care and treatment and for more beds in psychiatric hospitals for youth. We need to have more helping professionals in our schools and more support for parents and caregivers.  

But at the most basic level, children and youth also need to have adults in their lives who remind those kids on a regular basis. You are loved. You matter. You are worth it. You are a child of God. And whatever it is that you are going through, I promise to walk with you until you get to the other side and get healthy. And recover. And believe in yourself again, trust in and realize the amazing person that God makes you to be and to become.

If that sounds pollyannish or simplistic in the face of such tough times for the mental health and well-being of our children and youth, then so be it.  I’ve been blessed to work with youth for almost 40 years now, as their youth group advisor, and church camp leader; as their pastor and their teacher, and as their Uncle and Godfather.

Always I try and remember that when I was young and struggling, it was the adults in my life who took the time to care and who saved me in a way. Who cared so much about and for me that I learned how to care for myself.  Adults who embodied God’s unconditional love.

And how are the children?

The hopeful answer to that question is, in part, up to you and to me and adults who take the time to care for our children and our youth. These young souls belong to all of us. And they need our help. Now. NOW.

And how are the children? May God help us, to help them.       

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.