Dear God, it’s me again. I know it has been a few weeks, though I talk to you every single day. It seems there are more and more people in need of your attention, for succor, healing, help. I think you must have decided we are too needy, too loud and frankly too obnoxious, hypocritical and unworthy. Were I looking at things through your eyes, honestly, I would think the same thing. But God, I am pleading with you to turn around and reconsider your current indifference to our catastrophe.
Dear God, I am not angry. Well, perhaps a little bit angry, I will admit I try hard not to be. Every morning I wake from another restless night of tossing, turning and worry. Actually, not worry anymore it is now abject fear and night terrors, but no reason to quibble. I hurt everywhere and feel as if sleep has alluded me again. I try hard to remember to thank you for waking me, allowing me to see another day. I try hard to remember to write in my gratitude journal at least three things I am grateful for, even when gratitude is difficult to find. I do my morning absolutions before the day begins, reminding myself of the necessity though no one will see me, no one who will know if I skip a day. I do this not from habit but because I know these things will bring peace and give me a greater connection to the world beyond me, maybe even greater connection to you. But God, I have to tell you, with each passing day, it grows more difficult.
Dear God, I feel as if you want to bring us to the lowest point possible. I don’t know how much lower we can go. Is it that we rose so high? That as a nation, we were so arrogant, so prideful the fall is far? I know that it is terrifying and bruising for some of us as we fall along with the nation. Each day, there are so many of us that feel there is no further we can fall. Yet we wake in the morning knowing we have a bit further to go before hitting that lowermost rung and finally are at the bottom. We can see it, we might even be touching it, but we are not quite there yet. God, have you grown unsympathetic? I think you have; I think I would be too. But Lord, I look around me and all I see are the good falling with the bad, the innocent are suffering with the guilty. Breadlines are growing, homelessness growing and children without access to schools growing—cities with escalations in violence, especially in homes and families losing everything trying to keep hearth and home intact for just one more day. God, can you hear their cries? Are you listening?
Dear God, we are dying. It cannot be said much more brutally than this, can it? We are dying. Not just the loss of life, but our souls are withering, and hate is becoming the currency of our people. Your ministers are trading on fear and fury from the pulpit. Our elected officials are riding herd on the ugliest of human emotions, fear, bigotry, greed, envy and pride all wrapped into the flag and what polite society calls Nationalism. God, many of us are terrified. The country we love is ripping apart, and with it, the safety of laws and norms long understood, as imperfect as they were are tearing at the seams. We watch friends and family turn away from us; we watch as neighbors suddenly become strangers. It is a terrible and terrifying time and without your hand I don’t think we can come back from this precipice.
Dear God, it must be hard for you to turn away from the pain you hear in our lifted voices. It must be challenging to sort out what is real and what is simply the vainglorious chatter of those who use your name for their own purpose. I think you are more discerning and determined if we are so ignorant after all this time to follow the false prophets and preachers, we deserve what we get. I don’t really blame you for settling back and letting us sort out this mess for ourselves; I think I would do the same. I wish there wasn’t such a 
personal price for me to pay; I wish I wasn’t on the brink of losing it all. I wish I could find the lesson in all of this for me personally; maybe I will eventually.
Dear God, I try to always keep my personal desires, needs and wants out of my prayers. Every single morning I try to remember those who are in greater need and lift them up. I want to remind you of those I care for who need your attention and give you their names so if you have a blink of an eye, they will be touched. This isn’t because I am unselfish, I am human God, and you and I know this well. I admit I am not always successful; throughout the day, I entreat you to please, let me find new work, let me save my home, and help me save myself. It seems these have gone unheard, you have another plan and I simply don’t see it yet. So as the new year approaches, I am preparing to sell my house and let those things that make it home go. God, you have given me great gifts over my lifetime; thank you.
Dear God, one more thing. Thank you for showing the scientists and the medical community the way toward the vaccine. It seems soon we will begin to slow this plague and relieve some of this nation’s terrible pain.
Are the members of the GOP both of the above? It is a fair question in light of their actions and active participation in the attempted coup by Donald J. Trump, outgoing President of the United States and his team of legal geniuses. What is there to say about those who took the following Oath:
Having close disputed elections is not unusual.” Mitch McConnell
basic job requirements. Our future must never see another person so utterly unprepared and ill-equipped as Donald J. Trump sworn into the Presidency. We can never again allow the last four years to be repeated; honestly, we can never again allow the previous twelve years to be repeated. Make no mistake, the polarization and partisanship began when Mitch McConnell uttered this famous phrase, signally the top GOP priority under the Obama administration:
That is it for me as a starting position. I know there is plenty to keep them busy in the first 100 days. There is more to keep them busy bickering and backbiting going forward after that. Yet, we the people have the power and we the people must demand a better nation. If we want the big stuff to get done, we must demand that they start changing the rules in our favor.
We have a long history of partisanship within our state and federal legislatures’, power begets power. Those with power want to hold on and those without power snivel, whine and plan their next move. This is the way of the world since history began to be recorded; it is undoubtedly the way of the Divided States of America. The one thing missing from the above? We the people, we seem to be the silent and all too frequently forgotten victims of the one-upmanship and gameplaying that takes place in the halls of power.
demand revenge? Will we escalate the cancel culture and just like the current administration demand, all our political enemies be ‘locked up’ for real and perceived crimes.
through this again. Perhaps Kamala Harris will run, maybe not. If the Democrats get the next two years right, they will hold onto both houses of Congress and there will be no divided government during Biden’s tenure in the White House. If they get it really right, come 2025, we will have a shoo-in for the next 8 years.
so much healing. Each item seems to be a priority. But if we could at least seem to be moving toward action, that is something. Gloating and revenge doesn’t heal us; it might give us a momentary thrill, it might make us feel good for a minute or two, but it does not heal us as a nation and healing the nation is what we most need now.
Dear God, it’s me again and I have a small bone to pick with you this morning. I am certain you must be exhausted now with all the terrible down here, but if you could just take a minute or two, I think I can convince you we are worth saving. I know it seems as if we are intent upon our own destruction, determined to extinguish all that is good and raise up the worst within us. I look around and see this every single day. Nevertheless, I also see much that is good, much that is worthy of saving. I know, God, I know it is hard to forgive the terrible that lies within us, the horrible that continues to rise up and tear us apart, given even the smallest of openings. Yet, God, I believe there is so much that is good. If we simply crack that door, there will be a great awakening and the good will prevail.
every single day. Our leaders prance off on unearned and undeserved holiday, paid for by us. They laugh and joke at our misery, knowing they have created this maelstrom. Acts of brutality are committed in our streets, so many of us are numb. We turn away rather than be outraged; we blame the victim, searching for justification. We grow heartless because our leaders are heartless. We grow numb because we are full up and hopelessness seems to be all that is left for us.
believe there are enough good people, enough fair-minded people, enough willing people that with some time and focus, we can fix this and even make it better. I know we are terribly fragmented today; it seems we are almost irreparable in our brokenness. We chose the lines in the sand we have drawn that divide us today. We can choose to rub them out just as easily; it is a choice. It will only take a few to cross the great chasm of fury currently occupying our time, our minds and our hearts. This terrible fury taking over our nation is destroying us all.
She is the Federalist Society’s darling, and for excellent reason, she is by far one of the purest Constitutional Originalists I have read in over thirty years. She goes much further than her mentor Scalia ever did in his interpretations. She absolutely terrifies me, in part because she is bright, pragmatic but even more, she is an absolute ideologue. She hides it well; she dances brilliantly. Still, it is there, and she is the antithesis of everything Ruth Bader Ginsberg stood for. Yet after hearings that were polite and without real merit, Lindsey Graham, without qualms and without a full committee, pushed her nomination to the full Senate for a vote that will be taken on Monday 26 October 2020. For those of you that are counting, that is six days before the next president’s election. She will be the next Justice unless some GOP members of the Senate find their moral backbone and say NO to Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and the rest of the spineless enablers and say YES to the American People.
been on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals since October 2017, three (3) years. Prior to her short time on the bench, she was a Professor of Law; much of her time in this role was spent at Notre Dame, where her published writings are protected. Her limited exposure to litigation was in private practice, with the only notable case being as research assistant on Bush v. Gore. She never argued a case, certainly not in front of the Supreme Court. I do not want to entirely dismiss her; she clerked on both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. She has earned a great deal of praise for her research, writing and teaching. She is beloved by her students. However, none of this makes her ready for prime time; none of this makes her a worthy inheritor of the seat left vacant by Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
The United States of America might be a classic tragedy if we saw it from a historical perspective. The American people would either be victims or villains, no middle ground this time around. Full disclosure, I have always been in the middle, always an Independent who thought both sides had valid points of view and legitimate ideas. In the forty-five years I have been registered to vote, I have missed two Presidential elections. I have voted for Democrats, Republicans and third-party candidates over the years at both a national and local level. I have voted in person and by absentee ballot. This year is the first year I believe every single vote matters. We are voting for the very soul of America; one outcome means the end of our nation as we understand it, the other the potential for something better.
and ultimately ego in each. It can’t be just me that sees a trend. Unless we force a change, it will be too late. We will simply be a footnote in history.
historical evils this nation was built upon, no reparations that can repair all the harm done. The only real fix is one of progress and future remediation. As a nation, we can address the evil of ‘isims’ in only one way, by making them anathema to all but the very lowest in society, those who have no place and must be rejected.
I wasn’t ready, not for any of the realities that are settling around me in these terrible days. I suppose I believed I was invincible and would be ‘exotic’ forever. Exotic was my beloved step-mother’s word for how I looked, not beautiful, not ordinary, not ugly but ‘exotic’. I also believed my body would never betray me and my brain would someday be as valuable as my body. Of course, these things were all fairytales; I always did have a vivid imagination.
told is vital to our success; our youth. We stare at that grey traitor for long minutes before we grab our tweezer and pull it out by the root. From that moment on, every morning, we inspect for more. If you have dark hair like me, they are obvious those bright white streaming ribbons throughout your head. Today I keep my hair its original dark chocolate, but this is one of those luxuries up for reevaluation as reality digs its claws into me, striping me of vanity and confidence at once.
happily ensconced in a relationship with someone who loved me, respected me and thought exotic equaled beautiful and brains were sexy. I thought, because of that damnable fairytale, career and personal would somehow finally have merged into something resembling a life of shared travel, backyard barbecues, friends and family mixed in with laughter, sex and shared secrets.
by this President, masks were optional and social distancing was not observed. While it may not be factual, the Rose Garden event is suspected of being the epicenter of an ever-broadening circle of COVID-19 infections beginning with the President, though currently, the blame is being placed elsewhere. The one clear thing, ignoring even basic safety protocols, has caused a tsunami of infection throughout the upper echelon of the GOP and those closest to the President.
Dear God, I haven’t checked in for a while and have to point out things are getting worse down here since our last chat. I don’t think there is anyone down here that will measure up to Job, Noah, Lot, or others from ancient days, just in case you might be looking. Times were simpler, the choices perhaps more black and white. We do not seem to have heroes in our midst these days and the ones we do have are not universally lifted up as they once were. God, I don’t think this is an issue of nuance but rather just a sign of how far we have fallen.
facing eviction, hunger, and the unrelenting deprivation of so many in our midst. I think we are on the brink of devastation and when I look around God, I see some people cheering it on as they did in Rome during the Gladiator Games. It seems we are both a failed nation and a failed people.
was in my generosity to others, my willingness to help even when I had little myself. Now, at the end of my productive life, I simply need one final opportunity to rebuild. So, God, I know this is a selfish ask, but if you wouldn’t mind, please provide the extra push to finally be working again before I lose everything and have nowhere to go. It is truly my only ask, the rest of what I dream of for myself I will work on for myself and if you see fit to add those blessings to my end of days, I will, of course, be grateful.
more rural parts of this new country had a voice. It wasn’t until the Civil War under Lincoln that it became common practice to run a single-party ticket, thus preventing the President and Vice President from being from different parties, creating divided administrative branches.
transition candidate. He will be President for four years and then retire. Will Harris be the next President, maybe if she proves herself in her role as Vice President. Then perhaps this nation is still not ready; we will have to see. What I do know, the Biden/Harris ticket gives us the best opportunity to start having much needed and long overdue conversations about the things that have simmered under the surface and corrupted our national progress for four hundred years. It is time to rip that scab off and let it all out, time to begin to truly address what is going to burn us to the ground if Trump wins four more years.
QBG_Tilted Tiara 