Ed Spivey Jr.

WE RECENTLY SPENT a couple hours with a salesman who was promoting the advantages of installing a passive solar system.

He had me at passive.

He also mentioned the federal incentives and tax breaks, but it was the promise of passivity that would have made me jump for joy, had I believed in that level of exertion.

Passive is right up my alley. I love anything that you can do from a seated position. My oven is self-cleaning, I wear no-iron shirts, my refrigerator defrosts itself, sometimes even while I’m in the same room, seated. Those unexpected dripping noises remind me it’s working hard even when I’m not, unless the day’s Wordle is frustratingly difficult.

Not to mention the satisfaction of having skilled workers around the house, role models in an honest day’s work by able-bodied — albeit excessively tattooed — men that are otherwise missing from my home.

THERE WAS NO WARNING.

I had just returned from a task that brings meaning and purpose to a retiree (triple-A batteries were on sale across town), but stepping over the threshold of my front door, I knew something was wrong.

In the middle distance, our dining room table — a place of memorable family gatherings and special dinners with friends — had been defiled with dozens of randomly shaped pieces of colored cardboard.

I gasped. This monstrous intrusion had presumably been placed there by the other member of my household, whose name I could not utter without a fierce complaint, the cry of a man wounded by a symbol of the last throes of human existence ... the jigsaw puzzle.

She: Oh, you’re home. I found that puzzle I’d misplaced.

Me: But I’m not ready for puzzles! It’s what you do when there’s little left to life, when you’re one step away from the grave!

She: Don’t be silly.

Me: I’m still a young man! In elephant years, I’m a teenager. I just got my driver’s license, for heaven’s sake!

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAS been raising a lot of eyebrows lately and, to my surprise, it has nothing to do with “guar gum” or Red Dye No. 40, the ingredients that make most things artificial. (Is somebody working on organic, free-range intelligence?) The main concern — other than a complete takeover by machines — seems to be that AI could write term papers for high school kids. I’m sympathetic to that concern, but from the students’ perspective. If I’d had that kind of help in school, I would have earned more than just the one A in typing class.

Most reporting has been about ChatGPT and Bing, Microsoft’s AI search engine, which still has some bugs, including combative responses. But who cares about that when you just want to find good airfares?

CAN WE JUST say right now that Ted Cruz will never be president of the United States? Can we say it out loud? Okay, great. I just wanted to get that out of the way before we move on.

This March brought an anniversary that few of us welcomed and none will celebrate. It’s been a year of downs: shutdowns, hunker downs, spend downs, and the down comforters some of us have started wearing around the house, having given up any lingering commitment to outerwear that can’t simply be dragged off the bed in the morning. Like robed and aging monarchs of diminished means, we stalk our indoor world with a queen-sized blanket dragging behind us over floors that, if you look on the bright side, are getting a good wipe down.

My own experience has been different since I actually have to leave the house in the morning to go to work. Despite the yearlong shutdown that caused my 45 colleagues to work from home, I need the high-speed internet connection for the magazine’s large graphic files. So, for the past year I’ve been doing something of my own invention. I call it: “Working from work.”

It’s a disconcertingly quiet 9 to 5(ish), with my primary human contact being the cleaning crew that comes in every two weeks. Despite less need for them, Sojourners is committed to supporting our local vendors, including trash pickup and cleaning, but neither crew wishes to speak at length with a lonely man who rushes gleefully toward them when they arrive. And the cleaning crew has projectile Lysol to keep me at a safe distance. (“The only way to stop a bad guy with a grin is a good woman with a spray bottle.”) Sometimes the only sound I hear in the office is when I walk by our copy machine, a motion-sensitive device that bleeps awake, lights flashing and eager to make a copy. Which no one needs it to do. (Sorry, sad little robot friend. But do you have plans for lunch?)

HOW ABOUT NOW? Now can we exhale? Confident that our democracy is still clinging above the precipice of failure, its fingers sore from gripping an outcrop holding our country together, its legs dangling over the jagged stones of dictatorship below [almost finished with the metaphor], its feet clawing for a foothold of common ground, even though feet actually don’t claw, but I can’t think of the verb that feet do.

Anyway, Joe Biden won the election and finally countered that hurtful nickname of “Sleepy” by staying awake for most of his inauguration. Chief Justice John Roberts did his part by respectfully stifling a giggle when administering the oath of office to a man facing a Supreme Court that could nullify any action he takes. And none of the television cameras picked up Roberts mouthing “6 to 3, baby!”

It was a nice ceremony, marred only by Rudy Giuliani rushing the stage, waving documents and shouting something about fraud that nobody heard because we were distracted by how much he looks like a crazed jack-o’-lantern. Other than that, the nation finally celebrated a president who will usher in our long-awaited renewal. (But it turns out ushers only have the skills to separate friends of the bride and groom, so we turned off the television and resumed staring at the same four walls we’ve been looking at since March.)

IS THE ELECTION over yet? Can I emerge from my dark cave of foreboding to the bright light of day, or have my worst fears been realized? I don’t really have a cave, just a basement. And it’s not so bad, since it has two reassuring packs of toilet paper to get me through the unknown that lies ahead. There’s also a case of tuna, and several cans of beets procured, presumably, by a troubled family member who thinks sheltering in place means living with a red tongue and a sour disposition. Let’s be honest: In these perilous times, you may need tuna, but nobody needs beets. (Pretzels would be good. But we don’t have any of those.)

Speaking of safe places: I had planned to use this column as a smug refuge filled with sanctimony that I would fling at those on the losing side of an election that brought us to the precipice of authoritarianism. It was to be a preening and indulgent essay that we couldn’t publish before the election because nonprofits like ours are forbidden from partisanship. (I felt so sneaky! I’m such an outlaw!) Unfortunately, after a careful check of the printing schedule, it turns out this issue might arrive in mailboxes before Nov. 3. So, it’s a good thing I didn’t say which side brought us to the precipice of authoritarianism. Because when it comes to authoritarianism, there are very fine people on both sides. (Whew! That was close!)

WHILE DESPERATELY PERUSING the news for anything not related to the coronavirus, or the economy, or the fact that we have one last chance to save our democracy—you know, the boring stuff—I read that NASA will be making a movie on the International Space Station, featuring Tom Cruise. The $150 billion laboratory orbits about 250 miles above the Earth, which is 250 miles farther than was necessary to achieve its principle scientific discovery: Camping in space is expensive.

I could have told them that.

If there were justice in this world, Tom Cruise would instead be making a movie at the Superconducting Super Collider, a much less costly project that could have produced innumerable scientific breakthroughs in physics. Plus, its site in north-central Texas is well known for its ample gravity and breathable air. But Congress canceled it mid-construction in 1993, and the U.S. instead spent more than 10 times as much on the space station.

The collider was my fave project in the 1980s. You want breakthroughs in understanding how our physical world came to be—I used to say at parties—you go with the collider. You want to watch an astronaut drink upside down—I would add, ruefully, at that same party—then the space station is your boondoggle of choice.

But since I lobbied for the project mainly at parties instead of, say, congressional budget hearings, we’re stuck with the space station. (Too late I realized my considerable influence was directed at the wrong people, just because they had beer.)

HERE AT SOJOURNERS, we’re all about hope: Finding signs of hope, praying for the gift of hope, living a life that embodies hope. Heck, I’ve even designed bumper stickers with that word, some of which are still on cars, expressing hope—albeit a weathered and faded hope—from the parking spaces where they’ve been for weeks.

But sometimes our hopes crumble in disappointment. As scientists work feverishly to develop drugs to counter the coronavirus, many alternative treatments trigger our sense of optimism and raise our hopes, only to be dashed when they prove ineffective, unproven, or laughably ridiculous to most sentient beings except Sean Hannity.

The promise of hydroxychloroquine, for example, was touted by Fox News for a month before it was finally debunked as ineffective and, in some cases, fatal. But now that the president claims to be using it, I’m glad I worked on the pronunciation: Hydroxychloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, hydroxychloroquine. (See? I’ve been practicing.)

A similar, more pronounceable chemical compound—chloroquine phosphate—also showed promise. Mainly used for cleaning aquariums, its medical efficacy was suggested by its ability to clear glass of slimy buildup that appears much more tenacious than any virus. (Despite being exposed to the chemical for years, those little deep-sea divers show no ill effect.)

By the time you read this, Attorney General William Barr will have resigned in disgust, or been fired in disgust, or is still on the job, disgusting the rest of us. Or has been forgotten by an American public that at this moment is preparing to shelter in place from the COVID-19 pandemic, which I wasn’t allowed to write about because “Pandemics aren’t funny, Ed!” Unlike William Barr, who isn’t funny either, except for one thing ...

ANYBODY ELSE THINK William Barr looks like Elton John? Barr never wears those heart-shaped glasses during congressional hearings, but other than that—and the pinstripe suits Elton wouldn’t be caught dead in—I can’t tell the difference. It would be nice if Barr actually was Elton John; then he would spend more time at the piano and less time undermining judicial process and the rule of law.

I’d have little complaint if the worst thing the attorney general had done was write “Philadelphia Freedom,” a song so sappy it makes me hide from the radio, unpatriotically, and that’s hard to do while driving. I’d let that slide, of course, if he had also written “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting”—which still gives me chills at the hook—and a dozen other hits that occupy what’s left of my aging brain cells. I might not remember the names of beloved relatives, but I’ll never forget the words to “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”: “Goodbye yellow brick road, where the something ti tum ti tum, you can’t plant me in the something, I’m going tum ti tum it tum ...” Great song.