People are asking, more and more, if there are any updates about our trial date given the pandemic. To be honest, it is somewhere in the middle of the miles-long list of things we don't know.
For each of us, just like you, there are many more urgent ones:
Will our children be well?
Will our parents?
How do we connect with our neighbors in this time?
How can we relieve the pain of those dying alone together?
Is this the spring thaw?
We were planning on being all together with some dear friends in Winona this week, planning for our upcoming time together in late May and early June. We called that off a couple weeks ago, when the unknown unknowns of this time started to stack up. Unlike so many cancelled meetings, however, we have no easy virtual replacement. Six of our team members do not have internet access at their homes. With cafes and libraries closed, their usual ways of keeping in touch are limited. Not being able to be together is just another microcosm of the loss and separation playing out on the largest scale possible right now.
It's not the first time for us. A meeting we'd scheduled for the first week of December was delayed for two months by an epic snowstorm. Nearly all of our meetings in Duluth have been extended by "snow days" that make departure impossible. Yes, even a particularly memorable May snowstorm that stranded one lawyer and a support team member overnight. With this perspective, the current crisis fits into a larger scale of disruption we are already familiar with.
On that subject, I'd like to invite Tim DeChristopher and Wendell Berry, each inspiring in their own way, into your living room. May their conversation wrap you into a vision of hope and resilience in the midst of everything you are bearing right now.
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