A World without Hugs?
Dear God or Bill Gates,

​I am a nurse’s assistant in a nursing home.  I work with people who are old, frail, confused, and isolated. 

I used to hug them all the time, but now I don't as much.  And their families, if they have families, don't hug them either, because these days their families can't visit them.  
​
They in a world without hugs.

I want them to hear the voices of their loved ones, the music of their youth, and to enjoy a sense of community with the outside world.  I want them to have virtual hugs through voices and music.  They are so lonely.

I know about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Reddit.  My friends use some of these all the time.  But they are not relevant to my residents.

I know about Skype and Zoom and Facetime, too.  They are closer to what I need, but the residents don't have access to equipment so that they can use them.

So I have a request.  Or, actually, four of them.

Would you encourage web-savvy millennials to create more platforms and forms of social media that are user-friendly for the aging and aged?

Would you encourage technology companies to provide the equipment and wifi access for us, free of charge.  

Would you encourage the management of my facility to use the equipment if given to them, training me to use it.

​And, while you’re at it, would you inspire management to pay me a lot more so that I don’t have to look for another job. 

​There's so much turnover where I work.  I don't really want to leave.  I love my residents. 

​I hope you'll act quickly. 

Cynthia

Confession

I, Jay McDaniel, the editor of Open Horizons, wrote the prayer above.  But I work with assistants in nursing homes quite often as a part of singalong band, and I understand their situation.  For more than five years my band has been going to nursing homes twice a week to play singalong songs, and at the end we always give lots of hugs.  We've grown to love the residents, as do many of the staff.  When COVID-19 hit, we could no longer sing at the sites, so we created a way for them to hear us virtually.  See Four J's Singalong. 

However, for our virtual singalong to work, the residents need access to tablets and wifi, and they need nurse's assistants to help make it happen.  Nurse's assistants know this and feel this, but they lack training, equipment, compensation, and time.  Nursing homes need more staff and they need to pay their help more.  For my part, as a process theologian, I know there's a difference between the living spirit God at work in the world and Bill Gates.  However, my feeling is that the living Spirit has no hands except those of human beings who can help do "the will of God on earth as it is in heaven."   So fervent prayers need to be heard not only by the loving Spirit but also by those who can help realize them.


The Loneliness Epidemic​

By Ezra Klein - @ezraklein - Mar 12, 2020, 8:20am EDT
​
​"Deborah Johnson Lanholm, 63, lives in Sicklerville, New Jersey. A retired nurse, she’s the primary caretaker for her older sister, Helen Palese, who lives with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. “She’s nonverbal,” Deborah says. “I do her speaking for her. So every other day, we do something together. We go to the movies. I take her to my crocheting group. We go out to dinner or the mall. But she’s with other people. All of that will have to stop because she’s too compromised.”..And it won’t just stop for Helen. It’ll stop for Deborah, too. “I’ll have to change my routine because I have to care for her,” Deborah says. “I won’t go out in crowds or be in places where I’ll be exposed.”

- Ezra Klein, see below
Excerpts
​
We are entering a social recession

"Make no mistake: The rapid implementation of social distancing is necessary to flatten the coronavirus curve and prevent the current pandemic from worsening. But just as the coronavirus fallout threatens to cause an economic recession, it’s also going to cause what we might call a “social recession”: a collapse in social contact that is particularly hard on the populations most vulnerable to isolation and loneliness — older adults and people with disabilities or preexisting health conditions."
Those at highest risk in the social recession are the older and the sick.
​
"No one quite knows how the isolation enforced by an epidemic disease will affect those at the highest risk, but even those who avoid the worst consequences will see their quality of life degrade. Local clubs, religious services, and time with family bring social structure and joy to many of our lives, but they are particularly important touchpoints for those who don’t work or can’t go out on their own, due to age or health conditions. If older and sick people have to refrain from these activities for months on end, their lives will be worse, and the rhythms and relationships that once sustained them may prove hard to rebuild."
Virtual communication --video conferences and phone calls, not just emails and texts -- can be very important.

"Just as countless businesses have moved to remote work and teleconferencing to balance social distancing and the need for continued collaboration, every expert I spoke to emphasized the promise of virtual options to ease isolation. Vivek, the former surgeon general, told me that 'to compensate for the reduction in in-person social interaction, we must ramp up our virtual communication and ensure we are not losing touch with friends and family.' Video conferences and phone calls, he said, are “more rich than texting or emailing alone.”
Tech savvy millennials - we need you.

Sadly, the hardest-hit populations are often the least technologically savvy. So one simple way to help may just be to act as tech support for the people in your life. McHale told me that an unexpected blessing for her was that her computer died last month, and the tech support she received when setting up its replacement “made me a much better tech user.” That’s been a boon as she’s begun to self-quarantine, as it’s allowed her to connect with others online.

But the hardest hit, by definition, will be those without robust networks of family and friends who can advocate on their behalf. “When we rely on our personal networks, we guarantee the most isolated and disadvantaged people will be excluded,” Klinenberg says. “By definition, they are not in our networks; they are the least likely to get assistance. This is an area where government can help by funding and supercharging community organizations.”
​


Can City Life Survive Coronavirus?​

Michael Zimmerman - NY Times - March 17, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET
"Today’s threat is altogether another sort of challenge to solidarity and our way of life. It is not a heat wave or a blitz. It can’t be mitigated by going to concerts or museums. It requires isolation...We will need to figure out a different approach, together."
"It’s becoming harder by the hour to find the new normal...We need each other in a crisis like this, but we rightly fear congestion. France and Spain have ordered all cafes and restaurants shut down. In New York, it’s the same, with museums and Broadway theaters on hiatus. Mosques have closed in several countries, churches have canceled masses, and the pope prohibited the public from Holy Week celebrations."
"Traditionally, we seek solace in religion, sports, entertainment and in the promise that modern science and societies provide all the tools needed to solve any problem....But the coronavirus undermines our most basic ideas about community and, in particular, urban life. Historians tell us that cities emerged thousands of years ago for economic and industrial reasons — technological leaps produced a surplus of agricultural goods, which meant not everyone had to keep working the land."
Photos from pstenzel71, pstenzel71, pstenzel71
Open Horizons