"You helped five people today"

What do platelets do? "The ligands, denoted by letter L, signal for platelets (P) to migrate towards the wound (Site A). As more platelets gather around the opening, they produce more ligands to amplify the response. The platelets congregate around the wound in order to create a cap to stop blood flow out of the tissue." Source.

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I went into the Red Cross platelet center at 11:30 this morning. A little bit after 2 p.m., while I was being disconnected from the apheresis machine that had extracted my platelets and plasma from my blood, the phlebotomist said to me, "You hit the maximum. Three units of platelets, and two units of plasma. You helped five people today."

Looking at what is going on in the world, and what we can anticipate for this new year, I wonder if you and I have some of the same concerns and preoccupations. I've sometimes found my grip on my usual optimism weakening at times. Just as one tiny example: as Los Angeles burns, our president-elect feels it is appropriate to call California's governor "Gavin Newscum."

**Sigh.**

With all of these figurative and literal firestorms around the world weighing on my mind, I can't deny it: the apheresis technician's words were a consolation.

A bit of background: for the last few years, I've been giving platelets at the Red Cross center on North Vancouver in Portland, Oregon, twice a month when we're in town, and when I don't have some disqualifying medical stuff going on. This blood component is in great demand but has a very short shelf life (five days, including the time needed for safety testing). You can donate platelets to the Red Cross up to 24 times a year, at intervals as short as a week between visits. The interval between plasma donations is longer—for me, it's every second platelet visit.

Kind words from the staff and volunteers are balm for the soul, but I admit I also like the practical incentives. Probably half my tee shirt collection is from the Red Cross, along with an assortment of other useful merchandise—a tote bag, backpack, duffel bag, hip pack, insulated mug, umbrella, and some unique socks.

On most occasions, a gift certificate, which I use for books, also follows shortly after the donation session. Right now, donors are also being awarded a chance to get Superbowl tickets. People of greater spiritual maturity than I have can decline such incentives to increase the benefit to the Red Cross.

Part of the reason we platelet donors are appreciated is that (according to the Red Cross publicity materials) less than one percent of the population donates platelets. Many people probably don't know the value of platelets, but among those who do, one discouraging factor may be the fact that for two hours or more the donor must stay more or less immobile, with blood being drawn from one arm and returned into the other. During that process, neither arm can be moved, and the fist on the outbound side needs to squeeze a rubber ducky (no noisemaker!) or similar squeezy item every few seconds—so no napping.

Maybe you're thinking, a two-hour motionless period ought to be no sweat for a Quaker, but the honest truth is that for most of my visits as a donor, I've not been observing traditions of spiritual discipline as they're usually conceived. I've been streaming old episodes of Frasier on my tablet. Our donation center has very good Wi-Fi. I can usually watch about six episodes in one sitting.

Once out of every five or ten visits, I get turned down during the mini-checkup before the procedure. Usual reason: low iron (minimum score for men is 13, for women is 12.5). Sometimes my pulse is running slowly; the minimum beats per minute is 50. There are also minimums and maximums for blood pressure.

Today I was listening to the Red Cross receptionist as she welcomed a first-time platelet donor. The newcomer explained that, at work, he gets a four-day weekend every month, which gives him an opportunity to become a regular monthly donor. If you're in a similar situation, maybe I'll see you there. Together we can boost the number of people who get the plasma and platelets they need to recover ... or simply stay alive.

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My unofficial comments about donating platelets are from my own personal experience and don't cover every aspect of eligibility and procedures. For those details, go directly to the Red Cross.

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Krista Alvarez remembers Norval Hadley. I first met Norval during his years at World Vision. Some years later, at a prayer concert, we had a conversation about the 1994 bloodbath in Rwanda, and he said that he regretted that Quaker evangelism in central Africa had not put sufficient emphasis on the peace testimony. His memorable words about the importance of Quaker discipleship: "The body reflects the beauty of the Head."

Greg Morgan on endocarditis and difficult encounters in chaplaincy: "We're all human."

Conscientious objection: how can we Quakers support our young people? A Quaker Religious Education Collaborative conversation circle, scheduled for January 21 and 23.

Meanwhile in Russia, you may have noticed that "the number of words you can say keeps shrinking."

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Jimmy Carter's state funeral at the National Cathedral, and private funeral at Maranatha Baptist Church, Plains, Georgia. Video coverage is available on the C-SPAN Web site.

Today, here in the USA, it's a national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter. I saw parts of the state funeral in Washington, DC, and the private funeral in Plains, Georgia. Here was a man who helped millions, both spiritually and practically (if such a distinction exists).

Heather Cox Richardson summarizes the day.

John Fea: "There was a different kind of 'power' on display here."

At the funeral in Plains, Joanna Maddox sings "Let There Be Peace on Earth..."

Stress test

I was 38 years old when I flunked my first stress test. It all started with pain that I felt doing aerobic exercises. The doctor put me on a treadmill, wired me up, and increased the treadmill speed until I said "uncle" or some variation thereof. She then referred me to a cardiologist, who examined me with a variety of expensive machines and could not find anything wrong with me.

Ten years later, something similar happened, only this time I was working in a very stressful environment. One busy evening I was running back and forth between two locations, one upstairs and one downstairs, when suddenly I found myself dropping into a chair and almost fainting. After resting, I went home to a normal sleep ... after sending an e-mail to a doctor describing my symptoms. (That e-mail is now a family legend.) After reprimanding me for using e-mail to report coronary distress, my doctor ordered another stress test. Again I flunked. This time at the end of the process I was the proud owner of a Cordis Velocity® stent, which has (apparently) served me well to this very day.

A stress test is not fun. It subjects the body to measured amounts of excess stress, with the calculation that the strain it causes will aid diagnosis without unduly harming the patient. This diagnostic opportunity is the hidden blessing -- maybe the only blessing -- that I see in that global stress test we know as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Tyron Siu/Reuters via New York Times.  

Despite what conspiracy theorists say, no Western agents of russophobia, anti-Trump media, or other plotters developed this novel coronavirus. It apparently has the same genesis as countless other viruses in human history, some of which have wreaked similar havoc. It spreads in ways similar to other viruses as well, by contact with respiratory droplets from infected people. Because a typical infected person may spread the disease to several others, the progress of the disease is exponential until people learn to stop giving the virus opportunities to spread. Although much research needs to be done on specific features, treatments, and prevention, nothing about this current pandemic is unprecedented or particularly mysterious.

I don't mean to minimize anything. Once infected, most patients recover, but it's a considerably more dangerous virus than a typical flu, especially if the patient already is vulnerable for one reason or another. (Again, see this WHO site.) But, aside from the medical questions, what are we learning about ourselves and our societies from the stress imposed on us by the coronavirus? Or to put it another way, what stress tests have we already flunked?

Here in the USA, national leadership has utterly failed to follow the paradoxical rule that governs all unpredictable national emergencies: the more serious the response, the better the outcome. Facing an epidemic, people who are told to "relax, it's no big deal" because "the alarmists just want to hurt Trump" -- and who therefore do relax -- will just make a situation of exponential growth that much harder to control. Yes, leadership also needs to avoid panicking people, but that requires telling us all convincingly that we're in it together and that the government is exercising competent stewardship over all the resources required in the emergency. Diagnosis: leadership incompetence. Those not in the personality cult of Trump are, to put it bluntly, not surprised, but now everyone can see how high the stakes are in maintaining competence and confidence.

The existing health care financing "system" has also flunked miserably. A single-payer system would allow the whole health care community to focus on prevention and treatment. In the current emergency, that would have saved politicians countless hours now devoted to negotiating complicated and controversial workarounds, all the while posturing to look good to the incredulous and anxious audience of voters and potential patients. At the end of the negotiations we may cobble together something like a centrally-financed response for this specific emergency, which will probably fall apart completely once the emergency ends.

Finally (at least for tonight!), we see how fragile our global trade and financial markets have come to be. Global actors have never been veritable angels, but Trump and his nationalist counterparts in other countries are weakening the post-WWII ideal of collective security almost beyond recognition. In its place they basically advocate the law of the jungle, however dressed up it might be in Stephen Miller-style pretensions. Markets, left unchecked by an ethic of investment in each other's well-being, inevitably devour anything that gets in the way of profits. Russia and OPEC may be in an oil price war, but for both entities, the ultimate enemy might be the USA's petroleum industry, who will (they hope) be driven into bankruptcy by low oil prices before Russia's reserves run out. Ordinary people in all countries affected by this price war are the last to be consulted and the first to suffer as markets contract.

As we monitor these diagnostic indicators, I hope that Christians, among others, will retain the ability to care for the individuals and communities involved without getting sucked into xenophobia, conspiracy theories, and passive despair. Examining the world's powers and principalities through a godly lens, we see that there is nothing going on that is unprecedented or particularly mysterious. It's just a virus, stressing us badly at the moment, impelling us (if we're faithful) to restore a vision of right stewardship of resources, and right investments in each other's well-being.

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Until a couple of days ago, I was expecting to leave on Monday for my first trip back to Russia since Judy and I left our Elektrostal jobs and apartment, back in October 2017. I still plan to make that trip, but not until something resembling normalcy returns.

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TOP: "There's a woman president in Estonia. What do you

say: can a woman become president in Russia?"

BOTTOM: "Of course not. I'm not a woman."

(Found on Facebook.)

Martin E. Marty explores the space between decline and renewal in American Christianity.

What about the theory that Trump is an instrument of Christian righteousness?

The Russian constitutional amendments: what will it mean to insert God into the document? And how did the amendment process give V.V. Putin two more terms of power despite his repeated claims that he wanted no such thing?

For Russians, humor is a key factor in the will to survive. Back in 2011, when Putin and Medvedev revealed that the latter, in serving as president for four years (2008-12), was saving the place for Putin to serve a third and fourth term, one of our students said out loud in class, "Putin again? By the time he leaves office I'll be 32 years old! I might as well shoot myself now." Turns out, she'll be 44!

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A different kind of blues, from the film Horowitz in Moscow. I am so fascinated by the faces of the audience.