Changing the slogan
Apart Together – Mary van Balen
A few days ago, a friend sent an email that, among other things, suggested a change to the slogan often heard in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. “Getting through this together” could use a little tweak. In light of the urgent need for people to self-isolate, she thought “Getting through this apart” might better reflect the message being sent by medical experts world-wide, and locally, by Gov. Mike DeWine and Director of the Ohio Health Department, Dr. Amy Acton.
I forwarded the email and added my thoughts: How about “Getting through this apart—together”?
A Robert Frost poem came to mind, “The Tuft of Flowers.” I hadn’t thought of it in years.
The poem
This poem spoke to me immediately when I first read it as a teenager in The Complete Poems of Robert Frost, one of my Book-of-the-Month Club purchases.
The speaker in “The Tuft of Flowers” is a man going out to turn the grass in a field mowed by someone earlier that morning. The speaker looks for the one who had gone before, listens for the sound of his whetstone, but without success. He had gone on, alone.
Watercolor sketch for my journal
“As we all must be,” the man says in his heart, “Whether they work together or apart.”
But, getting ready to toss the grass to dry, he spots a butterfly, searching for a flower remembered from the day before, circling around one lying, cut and drying out, with the rest of the grasses.
Suddenly the butterfly turns toward a brook. The man looks and sees what it had discovered: a tuft of flowers, untouched by the scythe, a “leaping tongue of bloom” rising up from the cut grasses along a reedy brook.
He senses that the mower had left the flowers standing out of sheer joy at their beauty. That realization opened him up to be present to the moment, to noticing birdsong. And, to his surprise, a connection with the one who had cut down the meadow and disappeared into the morning.
Instead of feeling alone in his work, the man felt the companionship and support of the unknown mower and carried on a heart-conversation with him, a kindred spirit.
The grace of that encounter with the butterfly, the flowers, and through them, the mower, flipped the man’s perspective. He was not alone after all.
“Men work together I told him in my heart, whether they work together or apart.”
Our work to do
This poem holds wisdom for us, as we face the Coronavirus and Covid-19 pandemic. Taking the lead where our President has not, some governors in our country (Thank you Gov. Mike DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton) have already ordered their citizens to shelter in place. I hope they all do, and soon. Not only for the sake of individuals’ health, but as a way to slow down the virus spread. To “flatten the curve.”
Staying inside one’s home alone or with family members is isolating. But it is our work to do. And as the poem reminds us, what one person does affects countless others. We are interconnected in more ways than we can imagine. Like the mower and the one who came after to turn the grass, we are working together at the same task. Even though we will never know the names of those who heed the warnings, follow the orders, and isolate themselves, we can draw strength from their actions.
For us, they are of life and death significance.
Some people cannot stay home. Healthcare professionals, grocery store workers, and so many others whose work is critical during this time, are putting themselves a risk to serve the rest of us. But for every person who decides not to be part of the effort – those who could stay inside but don’t, those who make unnecessary trips or insist on attending large gatherings, secular or religious, those who go on about life as usual – the strength of the communal effort is weakened. Thousands more will die.
Illusion of an unconnected self
In our country, individualism is glorified. “Doing it my way.” “Pulling oneself up by the bootstraps.” “I don’t need any help.” “Keep government off my back.”
“Going it alone” is an illusion. None of us “makes it” or fails to “make it” alone. And this crisis will not be met by individuals. It will be overcome by a nation, by a world of people working together as they live apart.
If you’d like, read the poem, “The Tuft of Flowers” online. Or if you, like me, have an old 1964 copy of The Complete Poems of Robert Frost sitting on your bookshelves, read it there on page 31.
Journal pages – Mary van Balen
On Ash Wednesday I took tentative steps into the Lenten season. I wasn’t sure what disciplines to embrace, but that morning I lit a candle and sat quietly in prayer before going through liturgical readings for the season. I attended a noon service and stood in line to receive ashes on my forehead, remembering that I was dust and someday, to dust would return.
He and his wife were busy folding loads of laundry and sorting it into piles for each of their four children. They were preparing for a month-long trip to visit both sets of grandparents and, in addition to that, camping for a week. In the midst of their preparations, they offered hospitality to a visiting aunt, which would be me. And of course, all four children were around, talking to their visitor and taking care of their own preparations—which may have included cleaning rooms and gathering books to take. I leave it to your imagination. Not a lot of time there to sniff the laundry.