I am struggling

I hate hand guns, and the weapon industry that makes it seem like a good idea for citizens to own arms, but WTF?! “You can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns,” the president said about the cold-blooded public murder of an American VA nurse who carried a concealed and permitted SIG Sauer P320. Dear America, how, just how are you rationalizing an inept ICE, and a heartless Federal Response with all their subsequent lies to convince people not to believe what they just witnessed in Minneapolis, again. I can’t hold such horror in my mind and yet I can’t stop thinking of those families who now have an empty chair at their dinner table thanks to the undisciplined and criminal behaviors of this poorly trained yet heavily-armed-paid mercenaries. Where is your outrage? Where is your defense of the 2nd Amendment? What is you limit to the retribution agenda of your wishy-washy President? What happened to the rule of law? Are you too struggling as I am?

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2016 → 2026

I’m not sure why nostalgia grabs us all so tightly or why even a decade later we get soft over all that came to pass, but January generally asks us remember what is important. To check ourselves. Name a direction. Voice our purpose. Take a step. I will admit none of this feels easy in the midst of so much dismantling, in the chaos of ICE, in what feels bigger than any hurdle we have faced before. But those are the conditions we face and there is no choice but to do something. Dive in. Swim good. My wish? Let 2026 be the year you do what you said you were going to when you were 23 and filled with crazy-ass dreams and wacko hopes and secret desires.

This is about hope

She and I sat on the sidelines watching all our kids compete for decades, playing Soccer, Baseball, Softball, Basketball and LaCrosse, from T-ball everyone is a winner to high school and college sports to semi-professional serious business. There was even a post-college year where both sons played in a men’s b-ball league. Traveling through blizzards, standing through downpours or blazing sun, we got there to watch the highs and lows sports offers its competitors. And, as luck would have it, we caught most games through the years, but last week we were overjoyed to witness our adult son endure 3 days of tough matches as he made his way to the semi-finals in a sport he recently started playing with a bit more intention, tennis.  We witnessed the thrill of the wins to advance, and the last match that ended in a narrow defeat. Admiring athleticism is inspiring, but so is watching the athlete’s internal struggle as their mounting frustration is pushed aside by determination. We yelled all the platitudes, granted all the positive nods, but for the person on the pitch or court or field, it is their mindset that must deliver the motivation to push onward. Exactly like every battle we face off the mat, right? We watched matches over three days, learning what every sports metaphor is aimed at in real life. Ideals like finding hope when its not easy or paying attention to the tiny little joys when those too are rare.

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