Monday, February 15, 2021

Winter of Discontent - Rotary Moment of Reflection

 

Rotary Moment of Reflection – February 9, 2021

Kim Brand, Indianapolis Rotary Club

Winter began December 20th of last year. It added insult to the injury of COVID and a literal and figurative darkness to the election that held on like a bad flu.

It was like the Winter of our Discontent.

Hump day was February 3 – we’re better than halfway through it now. Never mind the single digit forecasts, the days are getting longer – a couple minutes or more every day – like bookends moving apart to soon make room for another volume of sun!

Saturday, March 20, 2021 will be the first day of Spring. Foreknowledge about the angle of the earth with respect to the sun and our orbit gives me hope in a sort of astronomer-geek way!

I think with this Spring will come hope that a vaccine will finally flatten the curve – crush it hopefully - of COVID and, whatever else happens in the political arena, the fever will pass.

Returning too, I hope, will be crowded face to face Rotary meetings, fairs and farmers markets. I can’t wait for dinners out and to play with my grandkids at the park. Birthday parties! Going maskless – having to shave every day again (with a mask on it just didn’t matter.)

And most of all: fewer Zoom calls!

I believe we’ve made it through the worst. We’ll need rebab – to our embattled health care system and our sense of trust in our political systems and each other. We’ll get there. Rotary can make a difference. Our relationships, the things we think, say and do, our mission, will be even more relevant when we put these twin pandemics behind us.

But most of all our hope – when we recite the pledge today pay the most attention to the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ONE NATION UNDER GOD and know that the sun has always returned to shine bright on our country and our people – even after the darkness of winter.