Preaching. Skip if you don’t like preaching.

June 1, 2020

These are evil times in our country and I feel physically ill.  

I see our president acting like a clueless, bungling bully, threatening to have our protesting citizens shot.  Who the hell does he think he is?

I see a huge racial divide with police hassling and murdering people of color.  I hear about the rise of armed white supremacist racist nazis and fascist groups who fantasize about a race war.

Locally, I see pickups with confederate flags.  These signify racism to me because the civil war was fought over slavery and the South was pro-slavery.  People, armed with military rifles resembling M-16s, are in news photographs, parading around our state capitol.  They say they are protesting the pandemic restrictions.  I think they are trying to scare people.

These days people of good will appear to be marginalized.  Us citizens, obeying the health experts, are staying home, socially distancing.  By contrast, the non-mask-wearing Great Boaster occupies the news headlines, along with his hand-selected sycophants and toadies.  

The Covid-19 pandemic is killing two to three thousand of our citizens every day, while infecting many times that number. The whitehouse blowhard doesn’t seem to care enough.

A record number of citizens are in financial ruin, jobless, hungry, in danger of losing their businesses, their homes.

Meanwhile, Summer will start this month and the weather is already hot.  It will get hotter, thanks to global weather disruption from fossil fuel burning.  People need to cool off, so they will go to the beaches, to the mountains, to air-conditioned places.  All of these places will attract people, some infected with the corona virus.  More people will get infected, get sick, more will die.

One may want to give up and call our situation hopeless.

That would be sad and wouldn’t help.

What will we do?

I believe we, as individuals, must stay in place and admit this is a bad time.  The time to act will come, but that may not be soon.  We must not be fooled by these desperate times to break out of isolation.  Difficult to do, I know.  

I have faith, not religious, per se.  Here’s what I have faith in:

*Reality is indestructible.  Think about it.  Despite the disagreement between the president and the traditional press, things are the way they are.  Personally, I side with the reputable news sources, like the NY Times.  It has stood the test of time before, mostly.

*Time will reveal the reality of our situation.  Comfort and help those you can. Many people of good will continue to work tirelessly for us all.

*The universe is benevolent.  Look at the natural world.  All those plants and birds thrive without any tending or help from us.  We can also thrive naturally.  With a little help from our friends.

*Friendship is more powerful than animosity.  It is even nicer.

*Evil will eventually destroy whatever good thing it devours, but then the evil itself will also perish.  The universe will persist despite that.

*We may eventually be required to sacrifice our selves for a greater good.  But there are more important things than life.

*Things are often not what they seem. Look around.

These lessons are in the Bible, but also in other religious traditions, other writings.  We can derive strength and comfort.