Spirituality Sunday
Fear and Faith at CVS
The post below was initially written on 4/22/2025. I have had significant life interruptions since that point. I’m fine, we’re fine, everything is fine, you know? But fine is relative and writing and editing time has been scarce.
Writing, along with reading and exercising, is a preferred way to stumble towards sense. Thus, I am glad to get back at it.
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On Sunday, while scrambling to clean my car before making an Easter lunch of Market Basket steak tips, I listened to a horrifying Ezra Klein interview with Thomas Friedman. If you are into troubling listening and have a NY Times subscription, you can catch it here.
In the interview Friedman, an internationalist and close watcher of global trade, talks about all the ways that China is lapping America. He discusses smart phone makers that have become electric car companies whose products lap American vehicles. He speaks in detail about dark factories, where robots do all the work rendering electric lights unnecessary. He explores the Chinese government’s investment in renewable energy and their dominance in the solar panel industry. He contrasts this with our current administration’s shut down of offshore wind projects and promise to revitalize coal plants. He speaks skeptically of Trump’s promises to return hands-on manufacturing that even China has off shored to far east neighbors and beyond. He briefly explains how America’s abandonment of soft power initiatives like emergency food aid and global development funds will be readily replaced by China and the European Union.
I am not typically a fearful guy. But as I replayed Friedman’s arguments in my head on Monday morning I was flooded with anxiety. I have often spoken about the experience of living on the downside of empire, but listening to that interview made me feel those assertions settle in my bones. What does a poorer, climate incinerating America have to offer my children? Jobs in the military that are produced by poorly considered trade wars? Gigs as sworn officers in one of America’s ever-expanding police forces?[1] Jobs screwing bolts in some factory that we have tariffed out of Mexico and promised low tax rates if they only choose our state?
Not only do I think that economic protectionism and attempts to reboot the economy of 1965 will fail for our citizens. I also think that refusing to partner internationally to face the challenges ahead like environmental collapse and the fundamental restructuring of work due to AI, will fail the planet that some six billion of us call home. What good is America First if we do not safeguard mother earth?
These were the thoughts I was entangled in as I walked down the aisles of CVS, providing support to one of our Transitions to Work trainees. Shaky breath in, reminding the student that “the plan-o-gram is not always laid out with ‘A’ starting in the same place on each aisle,” then stepping back to watch him locate the single serving Honey Nut Cheerios.
Is surrendering to a corporate life in a field like private equity the best way to serve my children? I asked myself. “Do not forget to clear each level of the cart before going to the next level of the cart. It is important to work in an orderly way.” Fuck, what would make me feel better? Maybe that pint of Jeni’s Salted Caramel ice cream that is in the freezer. I wonder how old it is. Didn’t they have a listeria break out a few years ago? Retuning for a moment to praise the trainee for fronting the sea salt Smart Pop bags correctly.
The trainee kept working consistently. It was clear he was listening carefully. I asked if he had any paid work experience and he said that he worked at Market Basket. That explained the black pants, shoes, and white dress shirt with the collar ever so slightly upturned at the nape of his neck. Through the shift the trainee learned to work the trucks consistently and the product started to move more and more efficiently.
So, we made a way through the shift. My client mastering inconsistent plan-o-grams and the strange post Easter aisle location for Cadbury chocolates. Me scrambling to arrest a complete slide into despair.
Exhaling at the end of the shift, I walked with my client out to the parking lot. He said he was going to take the bus, but his mother surprised him by showing up to give him a ride. I introduced myself to his open and friendly mother and within three minutes of conversation learned that my client did not have one, but two paid jobs. His mother told me that he was also working as a part-time paraprofessional in the local middle school. Shocked, I asked my student if this was indeed the case. Through a shy smile, he admitted that it was.
As we discussed the details of the new position, including whether my client and his mother understood the reporting details associated with state benefits, I felt something like helium expand within me. In the midst of a world apparently indifferent, when not actively adverse, to his flourishing, here is this young man with a disability, making his way in the world.
I often return to a quote that I stumbled across some years ago in an article or a book I no longer remember. “Set out to write about the world, and you’ll end up writing about the bricks in your garden. Write about the bricks in your garden, and you’ll end up writing about the world.”
When the scale of challenges is so overwhelming, I am so grateful for the individual stories of the clients I am privileged to support. In the words of a fictitious philosopher from a popcorn movie so many years ago, “life finds a way.”
Standing in the parking lot of a CVS on Essex Street in Salem, I surrendered to this truth.
[1] Side note, do you ever wonder why such a free country needs ever expanding and often overlapping police forces as well as the largest prison system in the western world? As I walk by at least four types of sworn officers on my way to work in Boston, I wonder if this is part of the libertarian dream.