A Blessing for the New School Year ( a collage of lines written by 7th grade students) May you wake up to your alarm clock on time And may your laptop be charged and ready to go. May you be organized and prepared for class. May all your school days be productive.   May your mask be comfy. May your friends wash their hands properly. May you remember your locker combination And may your wifi not crash.   May you be able to have sports this fall term, And may the sun come out and scare away All the clouds on a rainy day.   May you understand your true potential And never underestimate yourself. May you find lifelong friends here And hold onto these memories for the rest of your life.   May you learn to appreciate and respect the campus. May the virus never touch school grounds.   May your friends and family be safe May your elders stay safe. May you comfort the sick. May you find peace in the situation.   M...

Tim Woodcock writes: When this pandemic is over – and the death tolls have been tallied, the data crunched and the policies critiqued, and the most incompetent politicians booted from office – only then we will be able to clearly assess the psychological damage it has taken on people. One aspect of this that has been on my mind recently is the way traditional rites of passages have been disrupted. We are already becoming used to births, deaths, and marriages being marked in creative but perhaps not entirely satisfactory ways. While I imagine a birth is much the same mix of chaos and joy for the parents as it has always been, will extended families members be willing to forgo the experience of cooing at a newborn and passing him or her from person to person? And if they do skip that, will the bond created be any less deep? Concepts like a “virtual funeral” – which was almost meaningless six months ago – are starting to take form and become commonplace. But does a virtual funeral ...