I was sitting here in tears as I went through my Facebook news feed a bit ago.  I have some wonderful friends, but there is so much going on in this country and so many varied opinions, that it is like watching an ongoing war.  Our country is in crisis.  In fact, for many of us, our lives are in crisis.

Everyone has a video camera and so videos of violence are everywhere.  An old lady walking down the street minding her own business and a young man with more than 100 arrests knocks her down.  Young kids beating each other up and videotaping it…thefts, murders…all being videotaped.  People are proud of how “bad” they are.

Parents are no longer able to discipline their children…I’m not talking about abuse…I’m talking about discipline.  School teachers are hit, abused, cussed at, have books and objects thrown at them, yet little to nothing happens.  Detention has been eliminated in most schools.   Kids selling drugs in school, everyone knows who is selling…little to nothing is done.

We can’t have honor roll anymore because it might hurt someone’s feelings!  Everyone has to get a participation trophy now.  How are children supposed to learn that life is difficult sometimes?  How do they learn that life isn’t always fair, that we aren’t always the prettiest, the best, the strongest, and the smartest?  How do they survive as an adult in a career where not everyone can get an award for participating?

We have created a world where money and “stuff” is king.  Many children are left unsupervised when they shouldn’t be because both parents (or sometimes in the case of a single parent) have to work one or two jobs to survive and provide basics.

People and kids get on YouTube and other social media acting in less than smart ways to garner attention and hoping to make money.  Young girls and boys are targeted by pedophiles pretending to care for and love them.  Parents don’t dare infringe upon their privacy to make sure they are safe.

Dr. Phil is always full of 30 or 40 year olds still living at home with their parents because they have never had to earn anything.  Everything has been handed to them and the “children” feel the parents are still responsible to provide for them.

Many of our politicians aren’t about what is good for America; they are about kickbacks and votes.  They want to make the lobbyists happy…not the American people.  We have a president who “pours gasoline on fires” often….who has teargas shot into peaceful protestors (then denies it was done, then has to admit that he lied) so he can have a photo op with an upside Bible in front of a church so he can look like a Christian.  Good Christians don’t make fun of handicapped people, don’t sexually abuse people, and don’t treat some sexes, races, or genders like they are sub-human.

We have so many people dying from a virus with the numbers going up because we want things to go back to “normal”.  We HAVE to get our hair or nails done, HAVE to get the bars opened, HAVE to be allowed to walk around without a mask because it infringes on our rights if we’re told to wear one!  So things are opening up (it’s an election year and God forbid that the politicians don’t give in) and the numbers for new cases and hospitalizations are going back up.  Even though there is more testing going on which may account for some rise, that doesn’t cause a rise in the hospitalizations?  We just can’t be inconvenienced to try to save lives.

We post old data on social media to try to prove our arguments “face masks don’t help”, “the virus is a scam”, “cops are bad”, “blacks are bad” “cartoons with guns are bad”.  We don’t fact check what we post.

We are now taking guns away from cartoon characters while the air waves and social media are full of violent music encouraging killing, rape, abuse, calling women horrible names, using the “n” word.  Have we lost our minds?  We make all of these “non-consequential” changes in cartoon land, but don’t give a rat’s butt about what is happening in the REAL world.

Why have we stopped caring for each other?  Why can’t we be inconvenienced a bit to possibly save lives?  Why are we, as adults, not setting better examples for our children about what a decent, caring, loving human being is like?  Why can’t we recognize that not all blacks are bad, not all whites are racists, not all cops are bad, that gays are not evil and going to try to “convert” or molest you or your children, that not all immigrants are bad? Unless you are Native American YOU come from immigrant blood!

Why can’t we learn from history instead of trying to wipe it out like it never existed?  We don’t need to honor bad history, but we DO need to learn from it.

Why do so many kids and adults turn to drugs to dull the pain of life?

I don’t have the answers to all of this….I’m as screwed up (if not more so) than many people.  I know what it is like to be physically and sexually abused my whole childhood.  I know what it’s like to go to school with nothing (or maybe a dry biscuit) for lunch.  I know what it’s like to be so poor we didn’t have food to eat at home, sometimes no heat to keep us warm in the winter.  I know what it’s like to go to school with “ratty” looking clothes because we didn’t have any better.  I know what it’s like being raised by alcoholics and never feeling like you can have a friend over because you don’t know if there will be a drunken brawl in your home.  Life sucked!!!  But through it all you survive somehow and you try to learn from it.  Because I was the oldest of four children, I had to take care of my brothers and sisters…and at times my drunken parents.

The way I was raised could have made me bitter, could have made me turn to drugs, or promiscuity, but instead it made me very empathetic.  I sometimes wish it hadn’t because that is a heavy load to carry.  I wish I didn’t feel others’ pains so deeply.  I wish I could watch the news and read the papers to know better what is going on in the world, but I can’t.  It depresses me deep in my soul.  It makes me want to stay in bed and pull the covers over my head and not deal with the world.

Maybe the answer is God…but many people don’t believe.  Many who do claim to be Christians are the most judgmental people I know.  We need to somehow learn to be more tolerant of each other and other opinions.  Because you go to church regularly makes you no more a Christian than sitting in your garage makes you a car.  Jesus reached out to the sinners…He hated the sin, but loved the sinner.

Even if you don’t believe in God, you probably believe in some kind of higher power, some kind of universal force, karma, something.  Regardless of what you believe, LOVE seems to be an answer to so much of this.

I’ve read a lot of books on near death experiences and nearly always if the person is questioned, the person isn’t asked “What faith were you?” or “Did you go to church every Sunday?”  They are usually asked “Did you love your fellow man?”  I really think that is the answer and the most important thing we can do.

We have to make changes that get criminals off the street, that fire bad cops, that send bad politicians and business people to jail (not country club jails…real jails!).  In this country if you have enough money you can buy your way out of anything.  It’s ludicrous.

If you want to protest, you’re allowed, but to hurt people and damage property isn’t.  We need to have consequences in life and for our behavior.  Our children need the same.

My heart hurts for us….it especially hurts for my grandchildren.  My time on earth may not be long, but hopefully theirs is.  I want the world to be a kinder more loving place.  I want it to be a place where they are accepted for who they are….not what they look like or what they can do for someone else.

I have seen the enemy…and it is us!  I have also seen the solution….it is us!