strong ‹‹ HOPE & RESILIENCE
JEREMY MORRIS W WHEELING, OHIO COUNTY
Finding Resilience in Wheeling A thoughtful approach to a challenging time.
as this pandemic grips our nation and world, it throws our personal lives into a reality that most of us could not have imagined. Social distancing is redefining how we spend our time, how we engage with our extended family and friends, and our work life. We are told, “look for the helpers.” As a small town, we are ready and willing to help our neighbors and strangers alike when adversity strikes. Wheeling is a town of helpers. “This isn’t the first adversity our city has faced,” says Rabbi Joshua Lief. “Wheeling has a 250-year history and faced many challenges in those years.” Lief shepherds Wheeling’s Temple Shalom. Founded in 1849, it is West Virginia’s oldest Jewish congregation. And indeed, the rabbi is correct. Wheeling persisted through the Civil War, world wars, the Great Depression, floods, the collapse of steel and coal, and even a prior global pandemic, the Spanish Flu. “It is the people of this community who have been bold, overcoming challenges, since our city’s founding in 1769, Rabbi Lief reminds us. Community resilience is a collective force. Resilience is distilled over time, channeled through the memory of the people who experience the events and those who later tell their stories. As we look around today amid this pandemic, we see people compelled by their kindness and duty to serve their fellow man. We see the helpers.
“As a yoga studio, we thrive off of personal connection,” says Lindsay Schooler, owner of Happy Goat Yoga (HGY) in the North Wheeling neighborhood. “We feed off of each other’s energy as we move.” Schooler says we should all use this abnormal time to do some personal investigation about how we can improve our relationships and our work habits and question whether the job we have (or had) suits us. “Go within. It’s what we teach. We are being offered an opportunity to look at the bigger picture of what is going on and realign our priorities,” says Schooler. “Be mindful of the first thoughts you think in the morning,” she encourages. “Let them be good. Let them be gratitude. Love yourself when you first wake up in the morning.” Schooler says morning is a time for gentle movement, stretching, and eating healthy. Social distancing has forced HGY to close its doors and resulted in Schooler taking HGY onto YouTube, something she had resisted before now in part because of her deep belief in the personal energy her practitioners share within the walls of the yoga studio. “The pandemic has brought an amazing opportunity to practice with people that you might never get a chance to practice with or learn from, so many wonderful yoga and meditation teachers around the world are opening up their practice for everyone right now,” says Schooler. “What will we carry with us out of this crisis? That is the question we must all ask ourselves,” says Lief. We must ask it on a personal level, we should ask it as a family, ask it as a business owner, ask it as a community.” As a congregation, Temple Shalom will carry forward its online services and teachings as a way to engage in making the world a better place just as it has done for the past 170 years. Schooler’s final piece of advice for everyone is, “Get outside and enjoy nature! By all means, safely get outside with members of your family and plant your feet in the grass. Put your feet in some water if it is warm enough, lean against a tree. Nature therapy is the best therapy we have right now.”
A Friendly Competition Charles Town Now reinvents the game show. When fun has been lacking and spirits are low, the antidote is obvious, right? To lift the collective mood and give downtown businesses a little love, Charles Town Now got creative with a Family Trivia Night. Conducted as a Zoom meeting and aired on Facebook Live, the April 24 event drew 14 teams. Former Charles Town City Council member Nick Zaglifa asked questions from six categories—music, sports, West Virginia history, anything Charles Town, current events, and pop culture—and sprinkled them with brief “commercials” for downtown businesses that made participants smile. Teams answered questions by holding their notepads in front of their screens, then flipping them together to reveal their answers. Seven teams competed in two rounds, and three teams advanced from each of those to a final round for a little over an hour of good-natured entertainment. The winning team took two $25 gift cards for downtown businesses. The Hollywood Squares–like layout of Zoom gave Family Trivia Night the feel of a game show. It was so much fun that CTN organized events on May 8 and May 22, too. facebook.com/charlestownnow
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