I think I have taken sufficient time to regroup. I think I have figured out how to take an active role in the good good fight, while staying sane.

This morning I went back on FB, and some news agencies, to get caught up with what’s been happening while I took my hiatus.

The first thing I read is that Trump wants to revamp and rename the program designed to counter terrorism from “Countering Violent Extremism,” or CVE, would be changed to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism. Singling out only Islamic terrorists. So if you are a white Christian terrorist I guess you get a pass.

The next thing I read is that the Senate committees pushed through nominations of tRumps to the floor of the senate, by suspending all their rules. Which to me is scarier than the first thing I read. They are following Cheetoman’s example. If he doesn’t have to obey the law and/or the rules, apparently they don’t either. After all, leadership comes from above.

Let me say that it is now my firm belief that what is going on in Washington is a coup. By definition. I’m not being alarmist. The blatant disregard that we are seeing of the laws, the constitution, and human decency most of all, scream it from the rafters.

The next thing I read was how tRumps immigration and refugee ban is most hurting children and women. It’s an article in the Nytimes, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/middleeast/trump-immigration-ban-children.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

Then I saw things that gave me hope……

In Victoria Texas, where the mosque was burned. I’m sure caused in no small part because of tRumps hateful immigration ban against Muslims. They have raised in less than a week $900,000 on their Gofundme page to rebuild. But even more heartening is the fact that the leaders of the Jewish synagogue there gave the keys to the synagogue to the Muslim leaders and told them they can use the synagogue until their mosque is rebuilt.

Love trumps hate.

Then I read that more than 800 Christian leaders, prior to a National Prayer Breakfast, denounced tRumps hypocracy. “A conscience that is not awake to suffering and fails to respond is walled off from the love of God.” tRump and his damn walls.

Love trumps hate.

I read that the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the immigration order In Tampa on behalf of Florida residents who are affected by it.

Accountability.

I have decided that for each thing these despots, these haters, these narcissistic power mongers do, we need to react with love toward the same people they are trying to hurt. We have to fight the good fight every day, but do it with love in our hearts. I’m not saying anger isn’t justified at what they are doing. I’m just saying, don’t live there. Let the anger motivate us to do good, to wipe out the desolation in some even small way. Let it make us kind to everyone you meet. Let it cause us to do good in the world. Not cause us hate. Not to make us like them.

When I was going through my contentious, long divorce, I was constantly angry, and had to find a way to channel the anger to be productive, to a positive ending for me and my son. The one saying I will always remember that helped me get through was “Holding on to hate and anger is like taking poison and thinking the other guy is gonna die.” It was a hard time for me. I didn’t see daylight for a few years, but slowly the tables began to turn on my own personal despot. Love triumphed in the end. The battle was long and tedious, but I didn’t give up, I refused to hold onto the hate and anger.

The lessons were not lost on me. I will take time each day to care for myself, with my meditation practice, taking a walk, reading the work of people who are wiser and more loving than me, eating right, sleeping well. I will revel in the sheer beauty of another dawn, or sunset, of a sea breeze on my face, of the love of friends and family.

And then, I’ll get back to the good fight. I will fight the good fight, and live to see another beautiful day. Light trumps dark, every time. And love trumps hate, every time.

Love and light to all.