My Soul Hurts

I really hoped that 2021 would be better. I didn’t come into it with high hopes. But there were hopes. I believed that after the atrocities of 2020 that things must change. They did…for the worse. 1/6/21 was such a horrific day. I am haunted by the images and the questions. The words of the politicians, mainly the president, who fueled a fire that became an inferno echo in my head. The empath in me feels the fear and uncertainty of this country as we watched in horror.

Many of us are still living in fear as we move forward toward the inauguration. We are scared of what is possibly coming. This is not the America we grew up in. This is more like the foreign countries we watched on tv and wondered what could cause such hatred in the world. Now we are living that hatred and wondering what the hell happened to allow this? How did the people we know become these people who are enraged and filled with hate?

Aren’t these the same people who told the rest of the country four years ago to “get over it and accept our new president”? Why can’t they follow their own advice? Why is it that they can’t just accept that this vile, hateful man lost? Yes, there are a lot of them. But there’s also a lot of others who were tired of the hate and tired of the bullying. And those people voted. And while they may have had a lot of people, the other team did as well and this is the one time I was glad we had an electoral college. For once, it did what it should.

I have been grieving and depressed about what has been going on over the last week. Actually, I guess the last four years has just caught up and it’s been overwhelming. My soul hurts. All of this divisiveness and hate has worn on me. My heart aches that people can’t seem to stop screaming and realize that we are never going to accomplish anything by fighting each other. Nothing. All of this damn fighting is for NOTHING. It needs to stop. The world is laughing at us. They are watching the USA as if we are nothing but a fucking reality shit show. And guess what! That’s what we are right now.

If you want to make America great, then act like a good American citizen and do what is right for your COUNTRY and quit letting your fucking party dictate your behavior. If you want to say you are a Christian, ACT LIKE IT! I honestly do not think Jesus would have gone through the US Capitol smearing shit through the halls. Seriously. I do not think that is the answer when the question is WWJD? I also don’t think He would condone beating a police officer to death. So think about those things when you scream how Christian you are. Think about that when you pretend to pray. Then maybe you should actually pray.

I read an open letter tonight to Congressman Mo Brooks from someone who was a friend of his and a former colleague. The letter was one of the most well-written pieces I have read in quite some time. One thing that stopped me and just made me repeat it over and over was this passage where Mr. Barclay was pointing out the responsibility of the hateful words and how they incited violence: “You know full well that Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, and more to the point, your own rhetoric, fomented the violence which resulted in the breach of the Capitol, the destruction of property, and, most importantly, the murder of a law enforcement officer. His blood is on your hands, and you can never wash that stain from your soul.”

I read it and repeated it to myself out loud. “You can never wash that stain from your soul.” That is such a strong and damning statement. And it is so true. When we try to say that our actions should have or do not have any consequences, we are being irresponsible. Our words are like Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Each action has an equal and opposite reaction. “The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. The size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the second object. The direction of the force on the first object is opposite to the direction of the force on the second object.” (https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/Lesson-4/Newton-s-Third-Law#:~:text=Formally%20stated%2C%20Newton’s%20third%20law,force%20on%20the%20second%20object.)

Those words were the force and the riot was the reaction and the push back to the force. Basically, cause and effect. And now there is an indelible bloodstain on the hands of the president as well as other government officials who supported him, including those from my own state.

I doubt the president has the capacity to understand the meaning of the words from the letter, much less feel any remorse. But I do know of Mr. Brooks’ work throughout North Alabama and hope that these words pierce his conscience as they pierced my heart when I read them. I know Mr. Brooks has a conscience. I do feel his words will haunt him. I feel there will be remorse. Eventually. It may take some time, but the old saying is that time heals all wounds. I am truly praying that time will heal the wounds of my country. To be such a young country, we have gone through a lot and some things have been at the hands of our own citizens. I pray our citizens open their eyes and see that they’re doing nothing but destroying the country they so claim to love. If you truly love this country, you’ll stop. You will dig deep and realize that as an adult there are times when we endure things we don’t like. We do things for the greater good. We adult when we don’t want to. We behave like civilized people. We do not behave as King George did in 1776, which caused the American Revolution.

We all know the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. But do you know this: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

This is exactly what happened recently by our own fellow citizens. Our country should learn from the past and do better in the future. And right now I want to feel better. I want my soul to not hurt. I want to know that everything is going to be ok tomorrow and the next day and the day after.

God bless you and please…God bless the USA.

1/6/21

I thought it was going to be a good day. It was my birthday. It is a day I’ll never forget. I felt as shocked and hurt as the day of the Oklahoma City Bombing. Terrorists. Domestic terrorists. Americans destroying the place I love. WHAT THE FUCK?!

And what gets me is that I watched my social media feeds and saw people I cared about say it wasn’t Trump’s fault. I was in utter disbelief. I have seen people today say that he was the best president ever. I wonder how these people can see what I saw and not see that he caused it? How? He has been provoking violence for four years. And over the last few months he has been calling to action more violence because he didn’t win an election. And yesterday was the pivotal moment of when it came together and the safety and sanctity of our government was in perilous danger.

I watched in horror as these monsters walked through the Capitol as if it were a mall to be treated like shit. That building is a representation of our government. And they tried to destroy it. They essentially held people as hostages because they were hiding in fear of these barbarians and wannabe thugs.

Thankfully the situation was under control after a while. But I kept asking where is the National Guard? Where are the rubber bullets? Where is the tear gas? Where are the reinforcements?

I was amazed at the fortitude of Congress, though. Those people, who had gone through hell, went back in and worked tirelessly until the job was done. Those people finished what was meant to be stopped. I didn’t agree with all of them, obviously. But I am still proud that they went back in there and got shit done.

Now I hope that 45 is held accountable for his role in the deaths and destruction on the Capitol on 1/6/21. I know he has worshippers, but I hope that there are more reasonable people who see the truth. I pray that people see that this man worked hard to get minions to overthrow the government in order for him to remain in charge of our country. I pray that my friends who are so damn blind will begin to see what really happened.

I was raised to believe the US was such a wonderful place. I am devastated over what has happened and I am so afraid my country will never recover. Yesterday was such a piss poor example of how Americans are. If you aren’t from here and are reading this, please know that we aren’t all like that and some of us are so ashamed of that man and that we cannot wait until the day he is out of the White House.

I’m praying for the United States of America. Desperately.