San Diego | Jinny's Occasional Poems

This January 6, I want to remember the date as my sister-in-law’s birthday, or maybe the Christian festival of Epiphany. I’ll do my best to tune out an overdose of analysis and commentary about U.S. events of January 6, 2021.

This year’s January 6 falls on a Saturday, when many of us will be experiencing a weekend, free from most work obligations and ready for a change of pace. As an inveterate player with words, I want to propose a widening “consurrection.” Taking the prefix “con,” typically meaning “with,” to replace the “in” of “insurrection,” we can create a “rising up with,” rather than the “rising up against” that occurred a few years ago. Just as “conspiring” at its root represents “breathing together,” so might “consurrecting” come to mean something like “working together to create a more humane, welcoming society.”

I would like more and more of us to spend part of January 6 each year in the sort of voluntary public service that’s become more closely associated with the MLK holiday later in January—let this Saturday be the start. Thanks to a faith community teamed with a local non-profit, I’ll have a chance on Saturday to sort produce for an area food bank’s weekly distribution, “consurrecting” on January 6 with an eclectic range of folks who work to reduce food insecurity in San Diego County.

May you find a worthwhile and fulfilling path toward “consurrection” as well.

(October 24 is celebrated as “United Nations Day,”
commemorating the entry into force in 1945 of the U.N. Charter, whose text can be
referenced at https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text)

While waiting for the fever to break,
I apply cold compresses and administer aspirin,
trying to remember not to exceed the recommended dose.
I pray, and pray, and pray some more.
I tell others and myself “I love you,” over and over, fervently.
I hum lullabies and songs of peace.
I crave quiet. I shy away from news and opinion.

While waiting for the fever to break,
I try to damp down feverish attempts to “make the world safe,”
be they my own or others’.
I search to find and support more measured changes toward
whatever the world wants to become.
I meander around the nearby detritus of prior conflicts, wondering at the
residual scars.
I gravitate toward the small patch of cleared ground where a group of us is
learning organic gardening.
Well before dawn, jarred awake by a buzzing phone, I ask the still-dark sky for wisdom.
The stars shine an answer, one I’ve too often forgotten:
“No one is an absolute owner; we are all, rather, temporary stewards.”

Tag Archives: San Diego

A Gentle “Consurrection”

While Waiting for the Fever to Break