Dear President Biden, There’s just so much. So, so much. And it’s pretty distressing/depressing knowing that what I’m personally aware of from the news and from simply existing is just the barest tip of the proverbial iceberg. Do you sleep at night? At all? I don’t know if it’s because there’s so much heaviness and …
Joy
Dear President Biden, I hope your Easter has been a meaningful one and that revisiting the resurrection story has brought you some joy, some real joy, the smiling through tears sort of joy. I got to experience some of that sort of joy this morning during our worship service – it was wholly unexpected and …
A kind of a tell
Dear President Biden, So much has been happening lately – so much heavy awful stuff – that almost everything I’ve thought to write to you about has ended up feeling too trivial to bother with. I mean, what’s the point of bringing up climate change, income inequality, voter suppression, or worries about more covid mutations …
Biden/Harris administration haiku
Dear President Biden, I’m not sure if it’s because I no longer have a daily practice of writing to the Oval Office occupant or if I’m just a lot busier than I was during the full-on DJT nightmare or if the ongoing toxic miasma that’s our news cycle is just too hard to bear, but …
A New Year haiku
Dear President Biden, Happy New Year to all of US! Here is a haiku to ponder as we make our way headlong into the new year: Twenty twenty-two;same old, same old, or can webreak free into love? May we all fall safely into new ways of being together.May we conjure joy every single day.May we …
“all women and men are created equal”
Dear President Biden, If Twitter is to be believed it would seem that Fox News outlets reporting on your addition of “women” to your recitation of the “created equal” part of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence had completely lost their shit over it. Maybe there’s an outlet somewhere where that was true, but …
World-tilting invisible history
Dear President Biden, I think I told you a few months ago that I was reading James Loewen’s book Lies My Teacher Told Me, a world-tilting treatise on how American history is so thoroughly white- (and male-) washed as to wholly misrepresent how our country came into existence and the forces that shaped and continue …
Please don’t fall on the filibuster sword
Dear President Biden, I swear I didn’t use the words “surreal” or “unreal,” or anything at all like them before the young woman I was speaking with yesterday said that it’s feeling to her as though we’re living through a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction sort of dystopian time. And then later in the day, Laura said much the …
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Circling back to what matters
Dear President Biden, Busy, tired, uninspired – I’m sure there’s more to it, but that trio of words sound good together and do a decent job of summing up why it’s been almost a week since I’ve written to you. Busy, tired, uninspired, and well, the overwhelm associated with living in this weird situation where …
Letting go of “both sides” for good
Dear President Biden, I do sometimes have original thoughts. Or at least I think I do. Mostly, though, my best thinking is reactive – or perhaps if I’m giving myself grace, my best thinking is responsive. Whichever adjective I go with here, what I’m referring to is my propensity to find the gaps in arguments, …