It was a sobering visit, in just about every way: to see hospital cots set out like this, to sense the seriousness of so many professionals, public safety and public health officials. But it was also a reminder--and a hopeful, stirring one--of how we get through all this. And what we have to do--simply MUST do--if we are to build a wiser, agile and compassionate democracy.
The point is: healthy institutions, functioning institutions, collaborating institutional leaders are indispensable. Not just a good idea. Not just possibly helpful. But indispensable to a responsive democracy, an accountable community of communities, an international response to crisis, pandemic, climate change, war, hunger and poverty.
What I witnessed on Friday (and I know it hasn't been easy or without conflict) was the State of New Hampshire working alongside four complex medical communities/hospitals, and then the NH National Guard standing in service to those medical communities, and then the University offering its staff and its facilities to the Guard, to the hospitals and to the State. Again, I can only imagine there were disagreements in setting it up, and there will be more as they move into implementation. But the point is: this pandemic requires healthy institutions (well-funded institutions, by the way) that are resourced by wise leaders, that are wired for collaboration and cooperation, that embody the values of communal care and the common good.
(Sorry that this has to come back around to politics...) But politics have to do with the art of the possible, and the manifesting of power and our capacity to collaborate. Politics have to do with investing civic and public institutions with energy, purpose and resources. What we've seen--easily since the Reagan/Falwell years and gathering a kind of rabid intensity every since--is a war on civic and public institutions. (See James Watt in the Reagan years, Betsy DeVos in the Trump present.) The dismantling (or eviscerating) of institutions is accompanied by a sneering, miserable, mocking contempt for them.
But that just won't do. We can not stand for it. Not any longer.
Here in Durham, a healthy, functioning, nimble University is necessary; and the State must do its coordinating part; and the hospitals are needed as public health systems; and the National Guard offers energy, servant spirit and human power. Without these institutions, and without their embedded ethic of colloboration, sacrifice and the common good, we lose lives. We lose more lives. And we lose even more than that. We lose our nerve. We lose our recognition of the ties that bind us. And we get mean and bitter in the process. (See Trump. See Fox.)
By the way, I was heartened--at least somewhat--that public health officials recognized the importance of chaplains, clergy and religious leaders in this effort. That's why I was invited: to be informed of what's being set up, and to be invited to on-call when the day comes that the Rec Center is opened, and hundreds of patience and hundreds of medical professionals are there. We need one another. And I will be ready.
I understand that this pandemic is tragic (thought not unforeseen) event.
