5/30/2022

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Thank you for responding to our recent losses with compassion rather than rage. These tragedies are profoundly confusing. They shake our faith. They make us wonder how a loving God could allow such things to happen. They challenge our trust in our fellow human beings.

When these things happen, it is easy to fall into the urge to blame someone or something, to grab the first explanation that occurs to us & take some action to prevent future harm. It takes discipline to resist these impulses & instead reach out to embrace the mourners & absorb some of their pain.

            I am grateful that you bring your own experience of loss to your role as our POTUS so you can genuinely say, “I feel you,” to those who are suffering. I know that you will bring that spirit of compassion to the wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier today.

            On this Memorial Day, as you reflect on the young folk who lost their lives in service to the USA, please also remember all of the young folk losing their lives in Burma as they fight the oppression of the junta. They, too, know that “freedom isn’t free.”

Please also seek God’s guidance in finding alternatives to violence so we can one day succeed in doing what Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce pledged in 1877 when he said, “From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

            HYITL,