This is a really short video response to this feud with the Vatican. And I find it odd and humorous that I am defending a pope….

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But then I saw the headline that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has decided to turn the Pentagon into a chapel of unholiness by praying for people to die, specifically the death of our enemies. And, given my very tight time frames for this Holy Week, I decided to make this quick video statement to say, once again, “That’s not the Christian ethic, Pete!”

Lord, have mercy…

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But I wanted to put out this message aimed especially at Christians who still might feel a little reticent to show up at protests and demonstrations. Because there is precedence in our own Biblical narratives for participating and Palm Sunday is the prime example.

With all that has been happening under this regime, I think it is particularly important for Christians to get out of our naves and sanctuaries and get into the street. The one “king” we recognize stood for Love, Justice, Mercy, and Compassion. We are to do the same.

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It’s taken me a few days to think through what I wanted to say about this attack on Iran, unleashed in the overnight hours of Friday into Saturday here in the United States.

Now, having read through the speech of Secretary of Defense (or War as he wants to call it), I was struck by a couple of things that he said.

First was this idea that we didn’t strike first; Iran did. Odd, since I don’t recall Iran dropping bombs on Washington, DC. But apparently for Hegseth, this whole thing dates back to the seizing of the U.S. Embassy in 1979 after the Shah fled Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini rose to power and instituted an Islamic theocracy.

“Their war on Americans has become our retribution against their Ayatollah and his death cult. It took the 47th president, a fighter who always puts America first, to finally draw the line after 47 years of Iranian belligerence.”

I remember the hostage taking, the 444 days, the frustration and anger at President Carter. I will never forget the night at the dinner table where I blurted out that we should go to war and bomb Iran.

My father, a Navy veteran of WWII, forcefully and sternly put me in my place.

“Don’t you ever say you want a war! You don’t want a war. Ever!”

You could have heard a pin drop. The seriousness of his tone, and the emphatic delivery was the first time I got the sense that my dad had seen things and was carrying memories that informed him of the cruelty of humanity.

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For Pete Hegseth to be talking as if our bombing of an elementary school in Iran was retribution for actions taken 47 years ago made me think that his dad never gave him that same lecture.

The other thing I noticed was his hubris. He dismissed our allies as “pearl clutching” and mocked the idea adhering to rules of engagement as “politically correct war.” And then he talked about “Peace through strength”:

“We are not defenders anymore. We are warriors. Trained to kill the enemy and break their will. History is watching. Be the force you swore an oath to be: Focused, disciplined, lethal and unbreakable.”

And then he blessed them in the name of God. Cue up “Onward Christian soldiers.”

I’m only half-kidding there.

About a day after this speech at the Pentagon, word was leaked out through the media that commanders were telling troops, who are now on a 72-hour notice of deployment, that this is Armageddon. High-ranking military officials were quoting the Book of Revelation to their subordinates. Suddenly, among the many shifting narratives as to why we have suddenly decided to start bombing Iran, a Holy War has become one of the talking points?

Let me be clear: there is no such thing as a “Holy War.”

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Even the Crusades of the Middle Ages were not “holy.” Like our modern-day wars, including this one, the powerful and privilege happily send other people and other people’s parents and children off to fight and die to keep their lifestyle intact.

Even if we apply St. Augustine’s idea of “just war” still recognizes that war is inherently sinful. And it’s sinful because it’s in the hands of humans and humans aren’t God. Humans are always tempted by egos and greed. No matter what Scripture one wants to quote from the Epistles, the Jesus of the Gospels is not about weapons, it’s about words. It’s about changing hearts and minds through acts of charity and not on wielding a sword and lopping off people’s ears.

The only thing Hegseth said that is true: War is hell.

Yes.

And we didn’t need to descend to the next level of hell on the backs of our military and civilians.

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I normally don’t bother with the State of the Union. I made the exception because there was an alternate SOTU. Many of the Democrats held a “People’s State of the Union” which highlighted the stories of real people who have been hurt by the policies of this regime.

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Meanwhile, I chose to join Lincoln Square for the actual SOTU, so I was with the ex-Republicans watching what has become of their party under BLOTUS.

And amazingly, it was a speech that was also many stories. The man who calls himself president spoke for close to two hours. And more than an hour of the speech was taken up with recognizing the U.S. Men’s Hockey team (and lying that the women’s team would be coming to the White House. They have reportedly declined). He recounted horrific acts of violence committed against women by immigrants (to drum up his xenophobic campaign against immigrants and refugees). He had other people place the Congressional medal of honor on war veterans (that would usually be the president’s job). And he highlighted the case of a girl who supposedly was being encouraged by her school to transition to be male, but then it was stopped and now she’s attending Liberty University (the look on that young woman’s face was a loud “Get me the F out of here!”).

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In other words, he had nothing much to say for himself because his regime is a colossal failure. His economic policies have kept prices high, farmers have been losing trade, job growth has slowed down. Besides lying (he claims that our economy is booming), he had nothing much to offer. Besides seeming to take credit for people surviving tragedies (how many times did he say that these folks were saying to him, “Sir, sir,” when he spoke to them?!) the president had nothing to offer to a national audience that is seeing their healthcare costs go up, and the dream of owning a home go up in smoke.

Watching this with the people from the Lincoln Project made this much easier to take. It was like Mystery Science Theater 3000 with running commentary on how Marco Rubio looked like he was dying inside, and waiting for Ericka Kirk to start to cry.

If you skipped it, you missed nothing. If you watched it, bless you.

Make sure to put March 28th on your calendar. That’s the next #NoKings event.

To quote Sweet Honey in the Rock: We who believe in freedom cannot rest.

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The United States Olympic hockey players did something amazing:

They won Gold Medals beating Canada at that country’s native sport.

Both the women’s and the men’s teams accomplished this feat.

If I liked ice hockey, I’d be more excited.

But I have always called it “Canadian Ice Boxing.” I was a basketball player who grew up in northern New England where ice hockey was the more celebrated winter sport.

UNH men’s hockey was always far more successful than the men’s basketball team.

Meanwhile, the UNH women’s basketball team consistently posted winning records, but struggled to get recognition with an invite to the NCAA tournament. When I was growing up, the women’s tournament was not given even a tenth of the attention paid to the men’s game.

Girl’s hockey didn’t really start to become a “thing” until I was a junior in prep school in the mid-1980s. I remember when the girls who were starting the hockey team came to me and asked if I would be willing to join them (I had a reputation for being athletic).

I declined.

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Even though women’s basketball wasn’t getting the attention it has now, I was paying attention, and I was dreaming of playing at the collegiate level.

And hockey? Why in the world would anyone want to be in a cold arena where the excitement is slamming people into the boards, throwing punches, and slapping a piece of rubber with sticks when they aren’t swinging them at each other?

Yes, I don’t like hockey.

I also have reasons for not liking the men who play the sport.

At the same prep school that I attended, the boy’s hockey team caused a crisis my freshman year when they sexually assaulted one of the junior girls.

They pulled her into their locker room, blocked her ability to leave, and held her down as three or four of them swung their dicks in her face.

One of the ring leaders was a senior guy who used to pick on other students and was a brash and bullying type.

In a surprise, and welcomed move, the school’s discipline committee, which included a couple of seniors, moved to expel the bully and a couple of the other boys, much to the anger of some of the other seniors. Because these preppies are the ones who have grown up to be the selfish and self-centered people voting for this corrupt administration.

Which brings us back to our Olympic men’s hockey team.

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A team that invited the FBI director to join them in the locker room after their historic victory, guzzling beer, and facilitating a phone call with the BLOTUS.

And Canklesaurus took advantage of that call to not only congratulate the men, but to then be dismissive of the women who also won gold…before the men’s team did.

“I must tell you we’re going to have to bring the women too; you do know that,” the president said in a tone that sounded like he was saying, “Whatever!”

“Believe me, I probably would be impeached, OK?” He laughed.

The men’s team members laughed along with him.

Yeah, it’s a big joke, y’know, women having success at sports.

This was all good fun between guys in a locker room, right?

I’ve seen where some have tried to defend the men for their laughter.

“It wasn’t the hockey players who made the joke.”

“They’d just won the gold for the first time in decades.”

“They were high on the adrenaline from their win.”

Nope. I don’t buy it.

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If any of those men had a scintilla of decency, they wouldn’t have laughed. They would have stayed silent. Maybe one or two would have even been brave enough to say, “Bruh, c’mon. They’re champs too.”

Nope.

Didn’t happen.

I wish it had. I wish that men, many of whom have the ability to go on to pro careers in their sport, would be more willing to support women athletes.

Congratulations, men.

You have won a gold medal in hockey…and another in misogyny.

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Well, it’s happened again.

The American broadcast version of Pravda, CBS, refused to let late night comic and talk show host Stephen Colbert air the interview he did with Texas State Representative James Talarico. Talarico is a seminarian and a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Texas, competing in a primary with Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett to run against either Republican incumbent John Cornyn or Texas AG Ken Paxton.

This decision by the Bari Weiss network apparently was to comply with an order from FCC chairman and presidential foot soldier Brendan Carr.

Colbert did a whole explanation during the Late Show about why the interview would not be played on the broadcast version of the program; however it would be available online at the Late Show’s YouTube channel. And, as of this writing, the interview has been viewed more than 2.7 million times in less than 24 hours.

If the goal was to silence Talarico, the broadcast bootlickers for the president blew it.

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This is not the first go-around for See BS on the cancel culture front.

Remember, Bari Weiss also tried to stop “60 Minutes” from airing a piece on the deportations of Latino men in the U.S. to CECOT, a notorious hell hole of a prison in El Salvador. The segment aired on the Canadian version of the show, and eventually, was allowed to be broadcast on the regular U.S. “60 Minutes.”

And, of course, this is the network that announced it was canceling "The Late Show” entirely. They claimed that it was because the show was too expensive.

But we need to understand that what was making it “too expensive” was Stephen Colbert’s biting satire and critique of the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, and CBS’s parent company, Paramount Plus, was trying to secure a merger with SkyDance. The president didn’t like Stephen Colbert making fun of him and had been lobbying to get him off the air. With a 16-million dollar merger hanging in the balance….well….it was not just bye-bye Stephen, but they pulled the plug on the whole show….and settled a lawsuit brought by the Canklesaurus because he was upset with the “60 Minutes” interview of Democratic Presidential candidate and VP Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign.

Geez, and here I thought it was all us lefties who were supposedly canceling the viewpoints of conservatives?!

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Now, to be fair, I have been annoyed by those on the progressive side as well with their policing of every word or phrase that gets used in a way that they deem offensive.

Case in point: a priest, who is about 25 years younger than me, put up a statement on Zuckerbook alerting all of us to the use of the words “deaf” and “blindness” in the Ash Wednesday litany. He wanted us to be aware of these words, and that they are used in a hurtful way that would need explaining.

I looked at the two prayers he cited:

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us.
We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved
your Holy Spirit.
Have mercy on us, Lord.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done:
for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our
indifference to injustice and cruelty,
Accept our repentance, Lord.

(Emphasis added)

I read these two prayers aloud to my Jewish wife. Her immediate response:

“What does that mean, ‘grieved your Holy Spirit’?! It’s not ‘grieved’; it’s ‘aggrieved’!!

Clearly, my Boomer spouse and my Gen X sensibilities failed to understand that people who are deaf or blind would respond badly to the use of these words. Although, in my case, my deaf and blind friends probably wouldn’t care since they don’t attend any religious service, and can’t understand why I believe in God.

Perhaps some of you can see the problems with these prayers. But, from my perspective, these are not referencing or disparaging Deaf/deaf (and there is a difference!) or blind people or making commentary on their lack of hearing or sight. And, for the life of me, I don’t know how I would explain these prayers in the context of a litany of several prayers where we are acknowledging the ways in which we don’t always live up to our Christian ideals.

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Admittedly, I get irritated every time a priest goes on social media demanding that I, as a priest, “have to say or do x,y,z thing” if I’m going to have any integrity. Being in this vocation, and serving a particular group of people, has taught me a lot about what I demand that other priests do. Should we speak out about the ills in society? Yes, of course we should. But how one is going to do that, and when, is really a matter for that priest to work out with God, not with me or the internet.

So, yes: progressives can be annoying as well.

But isn’t it interesting that the people who used to howl the loudest, who would cry about how unfair we, who are the progressive types, were to the likes of white supremacists such as Richard Spencer, isn’t it fascinating how they are attacking free speech now?!

From Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel to Sen. Mark Kelly and Rep. Elissa Slotkin to James Talarico to wanting to censure a bishop for a sermon…and arresting and threatening to deport foreign students for writing pro-Palestinian op-ed pieces in university newspapers….my goodness: who knew these folks were such snowflakes!

But joking aside: this is not a good look for a place that sings about itself as “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” As Talarico notes in his YouTube appearance on Colbert, “A threat to any of our First Amendment rights is a threat to all of our First Amendment rights.”

Very sad. Very true.

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But it is both funny and deeply disturbing that Bondi has a the ghosts of campaign ads past haunting her on the internet now. This woman, who has been doing everything she can to avoid fulfilling the mandate from Congress to release all of the files on sex trafficker and child abuser Jeffrey Epstein, once pledged that as Florida’s Attorney General, she would crack down on human trafficking.

This is embarrassing for several reasons…starting with the fact that Jeffrey Epstein was still involved in abusing and trafficking young girls and women when she was attorney general in Florida. And that now that she is the attorney general of the United States, charged with releasing the Epstein Files per a law passed by Congress, not only has the Justice Department been foot-dragging; they have been ignoring the survivors of Epstein’s horrible crimes, and retraumatizing them by releasing the identifying information (including photos) of the victims, while redacting the names of the perpertrators.

So much for going after the “monsters” eh?

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For most of the United States citizenry, they have been shocked and appalled by Pammy Jo’s behavior.

But for those of who have been living in Florida for more than a year, we knew she was this horrible and callous.

When one of the Congressional representatives was attempting to ask her about men who had ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Bondi repeatedly barked, “What are ties? What are ties?”

This reminded me of Pammy Jo’s relentless efforts to stop marriage equality from going into effect after the federal court found in favor of the gay couples who had brought the suit.

Pammy Jo tried to assert that only the county where the couples resided would have permission to grant marriage licenses to same-gender applicants. The Tallahassee-based Greenberg-Traurig Law Firm, which represents the county clerks of court, had sent a letter warning their clients that they might be breaking the law if they issued licenses because of Pammy Jo’s insistence. The whole thing ultimately blew up in her face, and I, along with my spouse and many others, showed up at our clerk of court office on January 6, 2015, to get our marriage license.

And I later wrote a skit for the Mickee Faust Club, where Pammy Jo was in a spelling bee contest and was asked to spell the word “Unconstitutional.” Similar to her “What are ties?” comments, Pammy Jo in my skit kept asking for a pronounciation of the word, language of origin, part of speech, alternate pronouciation, please use it in a sentence….

It was comical, but the point was that she could not get herself to acknowledge that banning same-sex marriage was UNconstitutional.

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Then in 2016, there was the horrendous shooting massacre at Pulse Night Club in Orlando, where 49 people, many of them Latin and queer, were killed. Pammy Jo went live on CNN with Anderson Cooper. She said all the typical “tough on crime” things about how they were treating this investigation. But Cooper wasn’t going to let her get away with sounding as if she cared about the victims. He pointed out to her that these were LGBTQIA people, and that she and then-Governor Scott had been relentless in their attacks on the community, both by fighting marriage equality and by fighting against allowing queer people to adopt children.

Pammy didn’t like that, but the rest of us cheered Cooper as a hero.

Pammy Jo’s refusal to do a proper investigation of the men associated with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell is par for the course for this sickening sycophant regime.

This Stetson Law average graduate has never been particularly good.

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As one social worker friend put it: “Everyone who had to do sexual violence prevention work in Florida during Pam Bondis reign should automatically get a shirt that says “I hated Pam Bondi before it was cool”. Because that woman made getting help for homeless teens, and human trafficking, Sexual and Domestic violence survivors absolute hell.”

On behalf of the state of Florida, I apologize, America, for what we have inflicted on our country. All I can say is I hope we can make amends by having a bunk bed ready for her at FCI Tallahassee…possibly in a cell shared with Ghislaine Maxwell when they finally send her back here.

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Niemoller then mentions the trade unionists and finally the Jews until the state comes for him and there was no one left to speak up for him.

Unfortunately, we need a new Niemoller to talk about the groups this regime is attacking:

Immigrants

Refugees

Transgender

Journalists.

The word that Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor now independent journalist, and another black independent TV journalist, Georgia Fort, had been arrested sent a chill down my spine…as I’m sure it was designed to happen. Chilling journalists is the point.

Our illustrious Department of Justice, led by that legal eagle Pammy Jo Bondi of Florida fame, managed to find a grand jury that would indict these two on the grounds that they had violated the FACE Act. The Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances Act is a law passed by Congress in 1994 to protect abortion clinics from overly zealous anti-abortion protestors…y’know, the ones that would follow women into the clinics screaming at them. The ones who would shoot the doctors and bomb the clinics. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Constance Morella, but in order to gain Republican support, they had to amend their legislation to include “and places of worship” protecting the First Amendment right of Americans to assemble and practice their religion. Additionally, DOJ is also citing an 1871 law that was designed to crackdown on the Ku Klux Klan, an irony of epic proportions when they’re charging black journalists under an act designed to punish white supremacists.

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Lemon and Fort were at a protest of a church in St. Paul, MN, reporting on the demonstration that moved inside the church during their worship service. The pastor of this particular church is, like me, bivocational. His other job? Working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement aka ICE. A curious career combination unless you espouse a white “Christian” nationalist belief. Lemon and Fort were livestreaming the events and offering commentary as things unfolded. Lemon interviewed a parishioner and traded words with a law enforcement officer, as he repeated that he was not a protestor but was covering this as a journalist.

Federal agents showed up at the Grammy Awards Thursday night to arrest Lemon. They came knocking on Fort’s door in the middle of the night to arrest her. They also arrested three others including a prominent Minnesota civil rights lawyer.

While I understand that the interruption of a church service is wrong and disturbing, I do not understand arresting the people who are there to tell the world that this event happened at Cities Church in St. Paul on Sunday, January 18, 2026. That is the job of a journalist. And, like the right of those attending their worship service, the rights of a free press are embedded in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The. First. Amendment.

The founders of this nation, those men in powdered wigs in the 18^th century, recognized that having a free press was critical to democracy. And believe me: if people think that journalists are bad now, the ones in the 18^th century were regular muckrakers. Still, Thomas Jefferson and company were willing to take the heat because a free press is important to keep the powerful in this nation in check.

Which is why our current occupier of the White House has referred to journalists as “the enemy of the people.”

Of course, journalists are not the people’s enemy. Journalists are the people’s eyes and ears and mouths, watching and questioning and then telling the public what is happening in the world around them. As someone with a journalism degree and accolades to my name, I am the first one to be critical of the Fourth Estate. I have often been dismayed and disappointed with the way the watch dogs of politicians and the powerful have rolled over in hopes of getting some belly scratches. And in our current media landscape, with corporate overlords making deals with this regime so they can continue merging and purging truth tellers from newsrooms, I am an advocate for the Don Lemons and Georgia Forts of broadcasting to strike out on their own here on Substack, so we can continue receiving real reporting.

And that’s why this regime is going after these two. It is to shut down and shut up independent journalism.

Lemon and Fort have already been released. And Don Lemon has hired Abbe Lowell as his attorney and so I am confident he will beat back these ridiculous charges. I hope the Jen Rubin’s and April Ryan’s of this space are preparing to do battle in court themselves (although I think the regime would be damn stupid to attack The Contrarian).

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What can we do to help? I encourage you to subscribe and support independent journalism. Gift subscriptions to your friends. Help keep these moral truth seekers to stay on this battlefield.

And because I am a priest, I will pray:

Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read; that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous; to the honor of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP #39, 827).

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I was a senior at a prep school in Massachusetts, a day student who commuted from my home in New Hampshire. Christa McAuliffe, a Concord High School teacher, had become a hero in our state, the first teacher in space, ready to bring the heavens closer to the rest of us on earth.

I was in the student union building when I heard someone shout, “The Challenger blew up!”

We turned on the television. And I stood there, fixated, watching the coverage and the repeated images. And the command:

“Challenger, go with throttle up.”

I was heartsick and deeply saddened. Christa had become “one of us” in NH and now she was gone…along with all those astronauts who had their own stories, families, and friends.

I went to lunch and one of my teachers saw me. She could see that I was visibly shaken. She inquired what was wrong, and when I told her that the space shuttle had blown up, she shrugged.

“Oh.” And then she moved on.

(Friends: it was that sort of response that was typical of the NE prep school culture, lacking in caring and concern and empathy. It explains why so many of the privileged and powerful grow up to be mean and brutal jerks).

I was so glad to go home that night and be with my family where we could mourn this tragedy together.

Gov. John Sununu, who none of us in my Republican family could stand because he was a prickly mean little man, gave a speech that was unusually heartfelt and thoughtful. Even he could show more care than a prep school teacher.

That was a horrible week for those of us in NH. The New England Patriots had just been humiliated by the Chicago Bears in the Patriots first ever Super Bowl.

Now the Challenger had exploded over Florida, killing our hometown heroine.

May the memories of all those killed be a blessing.

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Today marks the Feast Day of the Conversion of Paul. It’s one of the most powerful stories in the Book of Acts, a tale of how a man consumed with hate for “the other” is blinded on the road as he went hunting for more “others” to punish and winds up becoming one of the most devout members of the group he had despised so much.

In this morning’s reading from Acts, we hear Paul retelling what happened to him in his conversion experience as he stands before King Agrippa:

“Indeed, I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is what I did in Jerusalem; with authority received from the chief priests, I not only locked up many of the saints in prison, but I also cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to death. By punishing them often in all the synagogues I tried to force them to blaspheme; and since I was so furiously enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities.

“With this in mind, I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, when at midday along the road, your Excellency, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, `Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’ I asked, `Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, `I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

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This recounting made me consider those men and women who have sold their souls…or at least surrendered their morality…to be members of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as the Customs and Border Protection agencies of the federal government.

These past almost three weeks have seen two people shot to death in broad daylight. Both of them 37 years-old, both white, both part of protests against ICE and CBP operations in Minneapolis which have been causing tensions to rise in this upper midwestern city. Reports from residents say that there are more federal agents hanging out in their neighborhoods than actual police. ICE has chased drivers for UberEats into people’s homes. They have forced half-naked old men into the street in sub-freezing temperatures. They have grabbed pre-schoolers and used them essentially as human shields to bait the child’s parents to come out of their homes, so they can abduct them and send them to a detention center without any sort of due process. An internal memo leaked by someone in ICE details that their agents have been told they do not need a judicial warrant to enter a person’s home, a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.

They are unfettered by the rule of law, and have been told they have “absolute immunity” (another lie) from prosecution for committing acts of violence against the citizens of this country.

They are committing acts of evil and doing it in our name.

And so…this morning as I listened to the story of Paul’s conversion…I thought about these masked men and women. I wondered if it is possible for one of these untrained thugs to have a Road to Damascus moment.

What would it take for one of them to realize that what they are doing is hardening their own heart and damaging their humanity?

Are they not feeling how it hurts for them “to kick against the goads” ?

The Rev. Randy Hollerith, dean of the Washington National Cathedral, explained that “kicking against the goads” was a term of First Century agriculture. A goad is a sharp, pointed stick that a farmer would use to “goad” or steer the oxen to keep them moving along a particular path. If an ox kicked against the goad, it would only harm itself by driving the sharpened point into its own flesh. The metaphor here is that Paul, by persecuting the followers of The Way of Jesus, was only damaging himself.

The same is true for these federal agents engaged in violence and cruelty against men, women, and children, whether they are citizens, green card holders, or undocumented immigrants. Their wanton acts of inhumane treatment of “others” is not helping them, it isn’t helping our nation grow up and give up on the way we have brought harm on marginalized communities, and it is totally against the message of “Love thy neighbor as thyself’ and drives us further away from the Garden of Eden. By dehumanizing those they see as “other” they are actually dehumanizing themselves and turning themselves into a warped version of a human being, incapable of empathy and love.

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I don’t know that any of those working for ICE or CBP will find themselves blinded as they stride through the snow-covered streets of Minneapolis or Portland, Maine, or who knows what other city in America. I hope some will have that experience in some form.

And when or if it happens, I hope they will then find themselves in the care of an ICU nurse wearing a “Resist” button or a medic with a “F*ck ICE” tattoo in the same way that Paul received prayer and healing from Ananias, a follower of Jesus. And when the scales fall from their eyes, and they see the face of the “other” in front of them, I will be glad if they put down their gun and take off their Oakleys, and begin the road to recovering what they’ve lost of their humanity.

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Well, here we are: the end of Year One of Four of this regime’s rule over the country. We’ve only done one quarter of this iteration of the Grifter-in-Chief, and it has already been ten times worse than the first go around.

Sadly, he and his sycophants learned in the years 2017-2021 that having responsible adults in key positions meant that their schemes for corruption and chaos could be thwarted. Between the immunity case (Trump v. United States), and the influence of the broligarchy, and the toxic tendency of “progressive” voters to attack their own candidates for failing to walk on water and turn said water into wine, we have been saddled with this lawlessness on steroids.

I’ve heard the cries: I’m tired. I’m weary. This isn’t who “we” are (except Black Americans are quick to point out that this is exactly who “we” have been; it’s just now White Americans are getting a taste of the terror minorities have known for centuries).

For me, I hardly remember the days when I could wake up without feeling dread and heartsick. Thanks to my dear friends in the Fourth Estate, even that period from January 20, 2021-January 19, 2025, the days when I didn’t think about the President every day, we were never truly free from having to hear about the Grifter and his incessant whine that he’d won the election in 2020.

The terror he helped to instigate on January 6, 2021, for me has been living in my head ever since that day. It seems to have taken out a long-term lease in my neo-cortex. I think it’s because he’s never shut up, and the media hasn’t silenced him, that his presence just feels that much heavier and oppressive.

I am angry. It hurts to see the world protesting against us, booing our national anthem, and turning away from us because we can’t be trusted any more. I get it. But still, for those of us who didn’t vote for this horrible clown the first, second, and definitely not the third time, it stings to know that our allies have had to turn away for their own protection and sanity.

We are so alone.

The one thing I have to keep me going, keep me focused on the mission before us to reclaim democracy and get on with the business of perfecting what has always been an imperfect union is my faith. My deeply held belief that there is a God of Love and this force of Love has weathered many, many trials and tests, and still managed to emerge from the grave of hopelessness and despair repeatedly to get humanity to the other side of destruction keeps me from giving up.

The promise is not that we won’t have to struggle and wrestle with those intent on destroying us; it is a costly fight. But the promise is that if we stick with Love, and keep Love in our sights, Love will be victorious in the end. And part of living into this Love is being able to laugh.

The other day I came across a video that definitely gave me both hope and a good chuckle.

The setting was an online prayer session. A black woman and a white lesbian were on camera, seemingly only half paying attention to the woman leading this prayer gathering.

Then the prayer leader invited them to hear these words from Psalm 109 as she prayed for the leader of the nation:

“When he is judged, let him be found guilty, and let his appeal be in vain.

Let his days be few, and let another take his office.

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife become a widow.”

(At this point, the two on screen had pricked up their ears and were raising their heads and their hands in prayer)

“Let his children be waifs and beggars; let them be driven from the ruins of their homes.

Let the creditor seize everything he has; let strangers plunder his gains.

Let there be no one to show him kindness, and none to pity his fatherless children.

Let his descendants be destroyed, and his name be blotted out in the next generation.

Let the wickedness of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, and his mother’s sin not be blotted out;

Let their sin be always before the Lord; but let him root out their names from the earth;

Because he did not remember to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy and sought to kill the brokenhearted.”—Psalm 109: 6-15, translation in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.

Please don’t tell me that Scripture is dead!

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Seriously, the psalmist so often is the one who gathers the right words for the times when the world feels as if it has totally spun off its axis. If one reads only one book out of the whole canon, the Book of Psalms has magnificent poetry and speaks in a voice that gives room for lament, balm for the soul, and delight for times when our joy can’t be contained.

We’re in a time of moral and spiritual crisis and likely with at least another three more years to go. Yes, I know: we are hoping to make great gains at the midterms, and I also know there’s a lot of legitimate concern that he’s going to cancel the midterms. My own fear is that he will deploy so many troops at polling places so as to intimidate people from going to vote at all. And then there is the attempt to gut the Voting Rights Act once and for all.

With all of those things before us…I keep going to my psalmist:

Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.-Psalm 80:3

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Jesus flipped over tables, and the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire flipped out the internet.

At a vigil in Concord, NH, for Renee Nicole Good last week, Bishop Robert Hirschfeld spoke some tough words to the clergy of his diocese.

“I’ve asked them (the clergy) to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”

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I saw the video of his address early on Monday morning, and it felt like a gut punch. Because he was saying the thing that has been in my mind since November 6, 2024: this was going to be a very tense and dangerous time, and those of us who are clergy cannot hide behind our red doors and claim to wear the mantle of Christ.

The sins have been mounting. Masked men are grabbing people off the street and losing them in the detention system. People are getting sent to a gulag in El Salvador. Pastors praying outside ICE facilities are getting pepperballed in the head.

And now American citizens are getting shot in the face while the shooter mutters, “fucking bitch” as he watches the deceased victim’s SUV with a dog in the back seat roll out of control down the street before it smashes into a parked sedan.

Hirschfeld drew the connection for the crowd between the violence we’re seeing now and our country’s history of other moments of violence and human rights convulsions. Most notably, he talked about the NH seminarian Jonathan Myrick Daniels who was killed in August, 1965, in Hayneville, Alabama.

Daniels had been in the South because he and some of his Episcopal Theological Seminary classmates had responded to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to join the March in Selma. Daniels stayed behind, tutoring black children and helping to register blacks in Alabama. He wasn’t afraid to challenge the church, taking groups of blacks with him to Episcopal services and daring them to deny him, in his seminarian collar, entrance to worship.

Daniels was arrested and jailed with several members of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). After a week in the Hayneville jail, the group was released. Daniels walked with a Catholic priest and two black SNCC teenagers, one of them named Ruby Sales, to a package store around the corner looking for a drink. There, they were met by Tom Coleman who stood on the porch of the store and aimed a shotgun at Sales. Daniels pushed Sales out of the way and took the shotgun blast to his chest and stomach killing him instantly. As the others ran, Coleman fired another shot at the priest, hitting him in the back. Coleman was arrested and put on trial. However the all-white Alabama jury took less than an hour to return a not guilty verdict. Coleman had claimed he shot in self defense.

Gee, you’d think that Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller went back in time to serve on a jury in Lowndes County, Alabama.

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And that’s why what Bishop Hirschfeld said was a stark reminder that we’ve seen this movie before.

I shared his comments in our weekly e-newsletter of my church as well as words from the Bishop of Minnesota, who was a little less blunt. And for the first time since I’ve been providing the content for the newsletter, there was a response from one of the recipients. And he was not happy. Like many on the internet, he was outraged at the suggestion that clergy were in danger, and accused the bishop of ginning up the violence with his statement.

I acknowledged that Bishop Hirschfeld’s statement was provocative. And I also acknowleged that as one who grew up in the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire, I was not entirely surprised. I remember my much more conservative brother coming home from services when the late Bishop Phil Smith would visit our church and preach a sermon against nuclear proliferation. You’d have thought King Herod had been invited into the pulpit!

From my perspective, Bishop Rob was right, and not just for the clergy, but for anyone who follows Jesus. Especially in a time when there are those who are claiming Christianity while they commit the sins of calling immigrants every name but a child of God, we need the actual followers of Jesus to show up, stand up, and speak up for the vulnerable.

Until Congress reins in the lawlessness of this regime, we all need to make sure our affairs are in order as we seek justice, mercy and compassion in this country.

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My wife gave me a Tibetan singing bowl for Christmas.

I have been wanting one for a while. I love the sound of the bowls and the way they can help slow down my monkey brain so I can focus.

And I love the vibration as I move the Puja stick around the rim of the bowl. It’s soothing, comforting, and peaceful.

On Thursday morning, I played my singing bowl for me and for Renee Nicole Good and the people of Minneapolis.

Because I still firmly believe that Love is the way.

The video of the ICE agent shooting Good through the windshield and driver’s side window of her SUV was shocking and disturbing. The screams in the street and the sight of the bloody airbag after her vehichle smashed into a parked car and a utility pole was sickening. To then see the officer, now identified as Jonathan Ross, stride off down the street as if nothing had happened was the ultimate WTAF.

I know what I saw in the video.

I watched other versions shot from different angles. None of them lied.

This wasn’t some AI gimmick. This was real.

But within minutes of this happening, the current regime began its spin and assault on Renee Good’s character.

They called her a “domestic terrorist.” They said she was trying to “ram” the agents with her car. She was dismissed as a “leftist activist.”

More wild than those accusations was the president claiming she had run over Ross with her SUV and now he was in the hospital recovering…even though the video evidence shows him walking away from the crime scene.

Not limping. Not bleeding.

Calming and puporsefully walking, pulling his gaiter further up his face as onlookers screamed “Murderer!”

I’m convinced this is all part of the plan of this regime: commit random acts of violence and then spin the hell out of the narrative to claim that “leftists” are causing the terror with intent of getting us riled up.

And all of it to obscure other darker truths:

Our economy is failing. People are insecure and afraid about their futures here in the United States.

And, despite a law compelling the Justice Department to release the files on the late notorious pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, only one percent of what the DOJ has has been made public…and the majority of Americans suspect that’s because it will expose the president and other influential men.

Meanwhile…we have bombed foreign countries, including Venezuela, which now our president claims we’re in control of that country. He’s encouraging oil companies to go in and take over Venezuela’s thicker crude oil source. Historian Heather Cox Richardson included this piece of information in her daily newsletter, Letters from an American, dated January 7, 2026:

Today, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told an audience at a Goldman Sachs energy industry event in Miami, Florida, that the United States will take control of all oil from Venezuela for the foreseeable future. Lisa Desjardins and Nick Schifrin of PBS NewsHour reported this afternoon that Trump administration officials have told lawmakers that they plan to put the money raised from their seizure of Venezuelan oil into bank accounts outside the U.S. Treasury. Desjardins clarified that “[s]ources said they understood these as similar [to] or decidedly ‘off-shore’ accounts.”

Yesterday, Trump announced that, as president of the United States, he would control the money from the sale of Venezuelan oil.

Say what?!

And on Monday on CNN, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, made this statement when Jake Tapper was asking him about the invasion of Venezuela and the capture of the country’s president and his wife:

“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.”

Maybe I should strike my singing bowl again?

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As an Episcopal priest, I spend a lot of time looking at the words of the Scriptures and thinking through the teachings of Jesus.

What struck me is that when Miller says “we live in a world, the real world”….”governed by force”…”the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time” he’s not really wrong….if we consider it through the eyes of Jesus.

Because, from a Scriptural standpoint, the world that Miller describes is exactly the world that is corrupted by the Herods, the Pilates, and the Caesars of Rome.

The world Jesus entered into was a world that was corrupt. It was a world full of men seeking “power over” others, total domination, ruled by fear.

This was the world Jesus came to redeem, to correct, to bring the people back to God.

Because God—yes, even the “Old Testament God” whom Christians too often wrongly describe as cruel and violent—is a God of Love.

God’s one single hope and dream from the beginning of time is that we might want to love one another, and all of creation, too.

What Miller describes…and what we are seeing demonstrated over and over by this regime…is that they are representative of the very corruption and evil that is the opposite of the Christian understanding of God, and God’s will.

This is why whenever I hear someone lump “Christianity” into the same category with this regime, it is either because the person has no clue what Christianity really stands for, or that they have been convinced by the con men to believe that Jesus sides with those who wanted “power over” others, even though the Gospels show the opposite.

Kind of like video evidence of a federal agent killing a mom backing up her SUV and trying to avoid hitting him vs. the narrative that she was ramming her vehichle into him.

It seems 2026 is already turning into another long slog of a year. And as much as these actions that offend human decency and Christian morality are designed to push us into violence, I refuse.

I will not let them make me into one of them.

In the words of the Sonia Sanchez poem: “I will stay on the battlefield ‘til I die.” The link takes you to Sweet Honey in the Rock’s rendition. Give it a listen.

And I will strike my singing bowl for you, for me, and for this effed up world.

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Before he did his first newscast, Dokoupil put out a statement about the type of reporting the public can now expect from the Tiffany Network. And it ain’t pretty.

Dokoupil denounced the network’s reliance on “advocates” “academics or elites” in its pursuit of news stories and not paying enough attention to the faceless “you” in the audience.

As one who started my professional life as a public radio journalist, when I read about this, I wanted to throw up.

No offense to all of the “yous” out there, but unless “you” have information that is pertinent to the story a journalist is pursuing, “you” are not the person to be interviewed. Unless “you” are the person making the news, or “you” are a witness to the news event, “you” are the people that the journalist is hoping to inform and give you what you need to have an understanding and appreciation for whatever is the news story. You are participating as an audience member, but not as the subject matter, and especially not as a source who can further explain what’s happening.

Let’s say a reporter is covering a story about inflation. The people who can talk the most cogently about such a thing are people who spend their days looking at supply and demand aka economists aka “experts and academics.” In order to set up the story to be relatable to the listener, viewer, or reader, a journalist might find a “you” to ask them about shopping for groceries or other goods. What are the factors that weigh into “your” decisions about what “you” can afford to buy? And then the journalist brings in the “academic or elite” to explain why “you” are feeling this hurt.

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I also saw the clip of Dokoupil’s rocky start at the anchor desk and, admittedly, it looked like something out the movie Broadcast News, where Al Brooks’ character is sweating bullets as he attempts to be an evening anchor. It reminded me of the time during my short TV stint as a Mizzou journalism student and while I was in mid-sentence, the script on the telepromter disappeared. I had a moment of looking like a deer caught in the headlights, and quickly found my place on the copy in my hands so I could complete my thought. The teleprompter operator said she had no idea what happened, but I knew that I had just looked like an idiot for the mid-Missouri audience that had tuned in for the Today Show on NBC. So, a part of me felt bad for Dokoupil.

But still, making a weak excuse like, “First day! First day, big problems here,” when the teleprompter and the visuals weren’t matching up made me laugh outloud. And I wasn’t laughing with him, but at him. He’s not a college student; he’s had a long professional career in TV already that he could have handled that better. Afterall, it wasn’t really his “first day” in front of a TV camera.

But the really gross and offensive moment was apparently the final story of last night’s newscast. The network has been sending Dokoupil to a different city each night (all part of that being closer to “you” out there). Since he was in Miami, he decided to use that final segment to gush about U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Rubio represented Miami in the state legislature and has risen through the ranks of the Republican Party, even though he hasn’t accomplished much of anything in his life except being related through marriage to a Cuban American crime family. I have described him as being like human tofu: he’s bland and takes on whatever flavor he’s with at the moment. Currently, that’s Christofascist.

Dokoupil showed a bunch of memes about Rubio, making light of how he has taken on several roles in this regime from being the head of the State Department, National Security Advisor, and cheerleader for quasi-regime change in Venezuela. But the last line of this fluff piece was Dokoupil smiling and saying, “Marco Rubio, we salute you! You are the ultimate Florida man!”

(“Florida Man” isn’t flattering. It’s the term used for a remarkably stupid person like the guy who lights a firecracker in his mouth on the Fourth of July because he thought it was a cigarette.)

And the loud noise we all heard was the howl of the ghosts of Edward Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, Ed Bradley, Morley Safer and a heavenly host of hundreds of other serious journalists in the great cloud of witnesses screaming at the idea of a CBS anchorperson figuratively putting their lips on the butt of one of this regime’s brutes.

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It’s time to declare CBS News dead to real journalism.

It’s just a propoganda machine. My hope for anyone with integrity still working there is that they need to get out…NOW!

Our legacy media outlets, the ones still run by corporations, simply cannot be trusted to give a fair, accurate, and reasoned reflection of the days events.

CBS’ parent company sold its soul. So did ABC’s with Disney. The Washington Post is suspect. Same with the LA Times. Their billionaire owners are exercising too much influence over the newsrooms to be trustworthy, especially when it comes to probing and questioning the actions of the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, DC.

It hurts me to say that.

It hurts because, while I no longer am working as a journalist, it is a profession that I loved, especially since my field was radio. I enjoyed those times when I could use sound and language to bring the listener fully into the story. Public radio afforded me the opportunity to tell stories with more information, going beyond a simple ten-second soundbite. It was a hard and stressful job, covering Florida politics and the state Supreme Court. And I took it seriously, and worked hard to give the public the information they needed.

And that’s why I just can’t with people like Dokoupil, who I didn’t think much of even when he was on the CBS Morning Show. He’s a lightweight.

Journalism is an important part of maintaining our democracy. Keeping the public informed makes for a stronger society. And so while it is sad to see the old stalwarts failing in this critical time, we are seeing what I think is an emerging new wave of journalism in places such as here on Substack.

Some of the reputable journalists, especially those in TV, have cut the ties with their corporate bosses and are striking out on their own, or finding a few others to band together and produce a news product that is both truthful and reliable. They are disseminating information without the pressure to make it palatable to the regime running this country.

But they can’t make it happen simply by will power. Unfortunately, money still makes the world go around.

I have picked a few outlets that I am subscribed to, so that they can continue to keep me up to date. I encourage others to do the same. Pick one or more that you feel comfortable supporting. Seek outlets outside of the United States such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) or BBC World Service out of London. On a local level, start taking the time to attend the occasional school board or city council meeting, especially when there are important issues before them.

For those journalists out there, and for those who may be aspiring to become a reporter, I offer you this from our Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

For Those who Influence Public Opinion:

Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read: that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous: to the honor of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 827).

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On this date five years ago… I was at home in Tallahassee.

My seminary classmates and I were enjoying a day of rest in the middle of one of the most stressful and mind-numbing weeks of any seminarian’s experience: the dreaded General Ordination Exams.

Think “Bar Exam” only for priests…and over the course of four days with a one day break in between.

We had completed days one and two…and January 6th…the Feast of the Epiphany…was our day off before the next round of answering questions by writing lengthy essays about our theology, knowledge of Christian ethics, history, the Bible, etc.

Because I was also enrolled in a chaplaincy program through Hebrew Home in Rockville, MD, I took a few hours on my “day off” during the late morning and lunch time to call people on my manifest. I wanted to check in with them about how they were doing…and be avaiable to offer any sort of spiritual guidance to them. COVID was still very much a thing, and so I could only call people on the phone. And most of the time, the person who I reached wasn’t the actual resident but a family member who was the primary contact. As it turned out, those conversations were often more fruitful and taught me a lot about offering presence to those whose loved ones were residents.

I had completed a lengthy conversation with a woman whose mom was under the care of Hebrew Home and was heading to the kitchen to get some water. My wife was at home in the living room (remember COVID so working from home was still a thing). She always has the TV on, even if she isn’t really paying attention to it.

She was sobbing. I looked at her.

“They’re attacking the Capitol!” she cried.

I froze.

“What?!?!”

“They’re attacking the Capitol!”

I looked at the television. There was the mob, thousands of people, scaling the walls, climbing the steps. Smoke billowing over Trump 2020 flags. The TV cameras capturing all of this for a nation to see.

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I had heard about the gathering that was going to happen that week. There were fears that this was going to bring a large crowd with ill intent into Washington, D.C., a city I had grown fond of during my seminary time. I had served at a church on Capitol Hill and come to know the people who call that neighborhood…and it is a neighborhood…home.

Watching this mayhem unfolding on the TV screen was horrific.

I thought of my classmates, my friends back in Alexandria. Virginia Theological Seminary had ordered all of the dorm residents to go home during the Christmas break (again: COVID was a thing). I had had the option as a senior taking the GOEs to come back to campus for that one week period, but I would be sent home again until classes resumed for the spring semester. That seemed foolish, so I had opted to stay in Tallahassee and with my notes and books at home to take the exams.

Still, even being away from the immediate vicinity, what I was seeing was so unnerving and it felt personal.

Going back to campus a few weeks later, I sensed a change.

I went into the city and saw for myself the barriers now erected around the Capitol complex. Streets had been closed off. And the coffee shops now had groups of National Guard troops lingering about.

The local TV news was a daily expression of the rage that filled the hearts of the city’s residents. They had had no love for Trump before. Now they were livid.

They wanted accountability.

They wanted to hold those criminally responsible for attacking one of their…one of our landmarks…to stand trial for this destruction and defilement.

They wanted justice.

Instead what they…and what We the People…got was a lot of mealy-mouthed condemnation of the attack by the likes of Senator Mitch McConnell without making the mastermind serve any real consequences for the action.

The Court at One First Street NE in DC gave immunity to the man responsible for inciting this mob violence.

And the not-very-plugged-into-politics population of America…some 70 million people…allowed this man back into the Oval Office.

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Which brings us to today…the fifth anniversary of that awful day…and the new Epiphany.

Because there does seem to be a revelation.

What I see and sense is that more of that 70 million population are beginning to wake up.

More are understanding that whatever they projected on to the Orange One, whatever grievances they have had and believing that this criminally-minded con man was going to do something to make their lives better, he hasn’t done squat for them.

And he never will.

Because he has never cared about those who are struggling to make ends meet or about putting criminals behind bars. My goodness, he called those who attacked the Capitol “patriots” and denounced the Capitol police officers. Those “blue” men and women still carry wounds in their hearts and their bodies from that day!

He doesn’t care about getting drugs off the streets of America: he pardoned the jailed President of Honduras, who actually was trafficking tons of cocaine into our country, while bombing Venezulean boats going to Suriname and kidnapping the corrupt leader of that country in the middle of the night to stand trial for trafficking drugs that Venezuela doesn’t even produce.

I am seeing by the sheer numbers of people showing up at protests, some who had never gone into the streets before in their lives, the evidence that those who had taken democracy for granted are having an epiphany,

If we want democracy, if we want to strive for a more perfect union, if we want to stop kleptocrats and this corrupt criminal enterprise, we need to demand it and fight for it.

Strategically.

Purposefully.

Joyfully.

The greatest weapon that We the People possess is our voices, and our unwillingness to accept the propoganda this regime is attempting to pump out.

We the People need to keep telling the truth and refusing to be silent in the face of tyranny.

This is what democracy looks like: young and old, multiracial, women, men, non-binary, cis and transgender, the messed up and the very well put together, getting louder and louder to insist that we want a world where we…and the person in front, behind, and beside us…get a fair shot at a decent life.

Keep shedding light on the darkness they want to instill in our schools, our courts, and our daily lives.

Support the artists who expose the lies and make a mockery of their deeds.

May we continue to manifest resistance to this shameful and corrupt regime and bring about the country we expect it to be.

Probably like most of you, I woke up this morning to the news that we were bombing Caracas Venezuela.

For me, it started with the guys at Meidas Touch showing video after video from different people on the ground posting what they were filming with their cellphones. I quickly searched for confirmation of what I was seeing by going to the BBC World Service (since I no longer trust news sources such as CBS).

My heart sank.

I confess that I don’t know a whole lot about Venezuela other than it is a South American country and that we have been shooting and killing the crews of various vessels and claiming that we’re stopping “narcoterrorists.” We used to do that by sending the U.S. Coast Guard to intercept boats and seize the drugs and arrest the crews, not blow them to smithereens. But that’s when we had a government that wasn’t run by a doddering narcissist and his toxic masculine goon squad.

The other thing I know is that Nicholas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, is a Spanish-speaking version of the authoritarian kind and he is the reason so many Venezuelans have been fleeing that country, making the incredibly dangerous trek through the Darien Gap to get to Mexico and the United States. In turn, our government…including the Governor of Florida…hasn’t exactly rolled out the welcome mat. (Remember the flight from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard where Florida taxpayers paid for tricking a group of Venezuelans into thinking they were going some place where they would be welcomed and help them resettle?

I’ve been reading that Venezuelan exiles have been glad to have Maduro and his wife captured. At the same time, it leaves the question of “Now what?”

And….according to what I heard our president say on the radio this morning…he’s in charge of Venezuela. Him…and Chevron and Shell Oil.

My heart sank even further.

We aren’t good at regime change. And especially not with this madman.

So…yes…I am unsettled. I am unhappy. I knew 2026 was going to pose a challenge but I was hoping for at least a weekend where the only insantiy happened on TV with college football games.

I know there are some of my priest friends who are probably rewriting their sermons. I am not…mostly because I hadn’t finished my original when all of this started. And my sermon was already focused on the terror of tyrants…because the Gospel reading is about the Holy Family needing to flee Bethlehem for Egypt before Herod the Great went on his killing spree. The story is very relevant for these times when the world has seen mass migrations of people fleeing violence including those trying to get out of Venezuela…only to get tackled by ICE agents in the U.S.

And as I was writing it…I kept thinking about the words of the psalmist:

“Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of the earth, for there is no help in them. When they breathe their last, they return to earth, and in that day their thoughts perish. Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help!…Who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger.” Ps.146: 2-3, 6

The story in Matthew’s Gospel about the Holy Family on the run to avoid the tyranny of Herod is a story of resilience and hope and trust. The trust was in God to not fail them.

What I encourage people to remember is that God has empowered us to be those beacons of light for each other. And when we feel our power waning, we have permission to go into a quiet place and let our batteries recharge.

Phillips Brooks once wrote, “O Lord, I do not pray for tasks equal to my strength: I ask for strength equal to my tasks.”

Together, we can make it through this.

But this morning as I woke up and worked on brushing up my sermon for tomorrow, I decided I wanted to think about the things that give me hope, peace, a sense of purpose, connectedness, inspiration, love, and joy.

And just to be different…and in honor of Rob Reiner’s brilliantly funny film “This is Spinal Tap”…I’m not doing a “Top Ten” list: I’m picking my Top Eleven.

So…drum roll please…sound those trumpets….and here it goes:

1. Witnessing the growth of the pro-democracy movement

From Hands Off to the No Kings Rallies, Americans have begun pouring into the streets to protest the illegal and immoral actions of our elected government. In Tallahassee, we saw a growth in these protests from just over 200 showing up in February to 7,500 in October. So many of the people out there had never attended a protest before in their lives! The same is happening in communities all across the country. In fact, I am very pleased and proud of those members of St. Barnabas who have been so moved to head out to the courthouse in downtown Valdosta to hold up handmade signs every weekend. This is a demonstration of the power of the people.

2. Connecting two friends who I couldn’t believe hadn’t met each other

On this same note as above, I was so surprised when sitting at dinner with my friend, Margaret, at her house that she hadn’t met my friend, Kris, who was one of the movers and shakers behind Indivisible Tallahassee and the postcard writing parties that were held weekly during the first round of this horrid regime. I knew the two of them would hit it off famously. And so a few messages and texts brought them together and BOOM! Their combined smarts and energy brought back the wind in the wings of the postcarding group and buoyed the spirits of those leaders who needed to know they had others who could shoulder the burden of rallying the troops. It was like the band got back together again and—boy are they jamming out some great tunes. The postcarding parties are huge now, taking over the dining room of a local pizza shop twice a month for a couple of hours. Lots of new people are taking part, and its become such a hub of resistance that candidates for local office are stopping in and taking a few minutes to make their pitch to the group. It’s awesome and—again—demonstrates the power of the people to stand up and be counted.

3. Hosting the “fREADom” event

I had intended for this to happen during Banned Books Week; however Hurricane Helene paid an untimely visit to the area and we had to postpone and the venue wasn’t available again until January. But it did happen, and it was a cool, needed, and unifying event of bringing together writers and performers to share passages from books that gave voice to the works of minority authors and assurances that some of us recognize the power of the written word and story to help build a stronger more empathetic society.

4. Supporting journalists and independent media on Substack

Also in keeping with the above, as someone who was trained and spent the first many years of my working life as a public radio journalist, I greatly value the power of the media to help shape and form public opinion. And I was so angry to watch one news outlet after another bend the knee and open their corporate purse to pay off this regime in exchange for what? A merger…or a day without being called “fake news” in some idiotic tweeting rant. I give a tip of the hat to all those reputable journalists who, having more integrity and unwillingness to be part of this abandonment of the public’s trust, have left corporate media and struck out on their own on Substack and elsewhere. They’re still reporting, and they’re still providing a “reasoned account of the days events,” but they are doing it as the watchdogs nipping at the ankles of politicians rather than as the lazy lapdogs rolled over on their backs looking for a belly rub. FWIW: check Substack for outlets to support such as The Contrarian, Laughing Leads to Crying, Terry Moran, Dan Rather, Katie Phang, and April Ryan.

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5. Rock painting words of Love and Hope

I count as one of my blessings that my vocation of priesthood in the Episcopal Church is a place where I can find hope and love and peace knowing that I am just a small player in a much larger and grander scheme of things. And it occured to me that while a lot of people have turned away from the church (which is, in many ways, the fault of the church itself) there are ways we can reach and foster that same hope, love and peace for the larger community through art. And since rocks are plentiful and everywhere, what would it be for a person to come upon a rock with a message that affirms their life and dignity? So I invited that same friend I mentioned earlier, Kris, and another friend, Sally, to come to our church and help us paint “Easter Rocks” to distribute throughout the community. There’s no telling who found one of our rocks and what those rocks meant to them, but I trust we put a smile on some faces and gave them a solid foundation for their hope for a better future.

6. Marriage in Tennessee

What a treat to be asked to officiate a wedding of two people who had been attending St. Barnabas while they lived in Valdosta. The marriage happened in the groom’s dad’s warehouse where they make toy guns in the town of Savannah, TN. But you would never have known that by the way that they transformed the space into a chapel and banquet hall. It was beautiful and amazing. And there was a Texas element to this family who were award-winning pit masters, so the food at the reception was sooo good.

7. Baptisms Galore

Right up there with marrying this lovely couple, I was blessed to baptize six people this year at St. Barnabas, four adults and two children. I absolutely love, love, love the baptism service. I am a big believer in not making this a private affair, but one in which the whole congregation commits to the core principles of our faith in following Jesus: that we will pray, break bread together, resist evil, support each other in our faith journeys, seek the light of Christ in each other, and all of that leading to a statement that we will strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. These are important statements and connections that we make with those whom we baptize into the Body of Christ. And once a person is baptized, that’s it. Nobody can take that away from them. I love it!

8. Performing with the Mickee Faust Club

I really do love performing with Faust. We write smart, funny material and the way we stage pieces is not that top down way with a director who tells everyone what to do. But actors and actresses get to experiment and the director helps to refine things and give pointers to get a piece ready for the performance. The end result is a lively show and one that helps the audience laugh at times when the world makes them want to cry.

9. Huzzah for Church Leaders

When I was in seminary my first year, I went into DC to the Holocaust Museum on Good Friday. I had already been to the museum a couple of times before and done the whole tour, so this time I just stayed on the first level and took in the American response to what was happening in 1930s Germany. As you might imagine, our reaction to the events unfolding across the Atlantic was not stellar. And what was most disturbing to me was the very tepid response from the Lutheran Church in America. Sure, they were against the rise of Hitler and what he was doing. But they could never bring themselves to talk about who was in the crossfire. I made a commitment in that moment that I would not be silent if the government turned on groups of citizens. That was in 2019. And now here we are. And I have spoken up in my context about the wrongs of the government. But I am even more appreciative of those Episcopal bishops and people with larger platforms that have not remained silent. That includes our denomination’s public refusal to participate in the resettlement of white Afrikaaners because they are not a persecuted group. Good job, church!

10. Mentoring a Seminarian

What a privilege and honor it is to have a young man studying for the Episcopal priesthood working with us at St. Barnabas during the academic year. I am happy to be assisting in his growth and understanding of this work, especially as a bivocational priest who is doing ministry as best as I possibly can while not living in the community where I am serving. So much of it comes down to trusting and empowering the laypeople to realize that they are the church, and letting them exercise leadership with my help and guidance. My primary role is to serve counselor and spiritual director, and share in the management of activities on the campus.

And last…but by no means the least…

11. Spending Time in France Away from this Country

Y’all, I can’t tell you how good and important it was for me and my wife to get away…far away…from the United States for a few weeks. To not be immersed in all the news of the United States. To not have the faces of this regime plastered all over the place. To breathe free…and just be somewhere else for awhile. It wasn’t necessarily our best trip to France, but it was well-timed for both of us. I know not everyone can leave the States and travel abroad, but for those who can, do it. Really. It will help your mental health.

That’s my list of just eleven of my top mitigating factors for this year that otherwise was a dumpster fire. I am by no means an optimist, but I am hopeful for the future. I think there is a movement afoot and possibly a shift in our collective consciousness that takes us more in the direction of Love and Light. That’s the intention I’m putting out there for 2026.

If you were to look for those things that help you to get up in the morning and stand up to the crazy-making of our leadership, what are some of those things? Write them down…a quick list. And then like that children’s book The Little Engine That Could, just keep repeating a mantra…I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

Because we can. And we will make things better.

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Nobody wants to talk to a reporter. And in the ranks of reporters in some markets, there is serious competitiveness and back-stabbing.

No one really likes each other either out in the field or back in the office.

This is why we haven’t seen male reporters closing ranks with their female counterparts covering the president when the occupant of the White House smears the women with “Piggy” and “Stupid.”

When I worked in public radio, I had to hear the grumbling from some in the Capitol Press Corps that we weren’t really independent because we received funds from the state. The implication being that, unlike these “hard-hitting” print reporters, my colleagues and I from Florida Public Radio had a financial disincentive to vigorously pursue the truth when it came to covering the state legislature and the Governor.

My typical response to such criticism: jealous much?

I can’t speak for all the member stations, but we at FPR in Tallahassee were not afraid to report the news. The only thing that held us back was our limited human resources: when you’re a staff of 3.5 people having to generate news every day it’s hard to cover everything and to spend a lot of time developing stories. The fact that we did as much as we did was a testament to our work ethic and passion.

To be absolutely clear: just because FPR or any other public broadcast news outfit received government money did not mean we were in the business of being the mouthpiece for politicians or the state.

Unlike what has apparently happened at CBS.

When I saw the post on social media announcing that a segment called, “Inside CECOT” was being held back from airing on the once respected 60 Minutes, I shook my head.

And then when I heard why it was held (no one from the Trump administration would comment for the report), I said a few choice words about Bari Weiss, the unqualified and undeserving editor-in-chief of CBS News. Weiss was part of the whole scummy takeover of the network’s parent company Paramount Plus by the Ellisons at SkyDance. I already have written my opinion of that merger.

I guess now at CBS news, if this regime refuses to comment for a story or make themselves available for interviews, then the story can’t air.

That’s called state censorship…and it’s wrong.

Fortunately, Canada had the original 60 Minutes line up for thier network…and now the report is being shared widely on the internet.

For at least as long as we can get away with it.

Sharyn Alfonsi, the reporter who had worked on this story for months, blasted Bari Weiss for her 11th hour removal of Alfonsi’s work, which features interviews with two of the Venezuelean men illegally deported from the United States to CECOT in El Salvador. Alfonsi noted her piece had been vetted at least five times by the CBS Legal Team…and had gone through the usual process of fact-checking multiple times before it aired. She said Weiss wasn’t acting on news instincts. Her decision was political.

Because this White House and its lapdogs refused to comment….the story is held “until a later date.”

So, who is the state-run propoganda machine now?

Sad to see this happening as CBS was once the revered network that produced journalism heavyweights such as Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.

Thank you, Canada, for being a good neighbor and making this important and sobering story available to those of us living south of your border. It’s an important piece that must be seen and we must not forget the brutality of this regime, and we definitely must not excuse it.

Maybe more of us should tune into Canadian and British news channels to learn what’s actually happening in our names by this government.

Becuase you can’t trust CBS any more.

Let’s start with a simple statement:

The man who is currently the President of the United States is a colossal cankled cretin and a despicable human being.

Yes. I read his Truth Social post saying the most inappropriate words about the murders of Rob and Michelle Reiner in their home, very possibly by their son, Nick. How could I not see it? Probably a couple dozen of my friends shared Dozing Don’s hateful screed on their Facebook timelines yesterday.

At about 6pm last night, I had had enough.

As someone with a journalism background, I am aware of the power of words, and the similar power of the media to shape and form public opinion. Now that everyone thinks they are a journalist on their own social media platforms…the explosion of uncurated, no-filter repetition of whatever some politician or public figure has to say is tiresome and soul-killing. No wonder there is a feeling of loneliness and isolation with so much crap showing up on our phones and computers every hour of every day.

That’s why I put out a plea to the universe of those seeing my posts on Zuckerbook to stop sharing the meme of the Divider-in-Chief’s Truth Social garbage.

There are people, actual journalists assigned by news organizations, who must listen, ask questions, and report back the pertinent information (such as it is) uttered by the fool in the Oval Office. They can (and have) reported his disdain for Rob Reiner and his totally inappropriate comments. So we know he’s a classless jerk. Again.

This is why journalists and journalism is important. As my professor Don Ranly used to say, our job was “to give a current reasoned reflection of the day’s events.”

Which brings us back to the Reiners, a couple that focused on doing good in the world, cared about others especially immigrants, and produced some incredible art in their lifetimes with films such as “This is Spinal Tap” “Princess Bride” and “Stand by Me”. I admit I am not as familiar with Michelle Reiner’s work, but Rob Reiner has been a name I have known from my childhood where my family almost religiously watched “All in the Family” the Norman Lear production that used humor to address the touchiest subjects of early 1970s and 80s America.

As I was scrolling through YouTube clips from “All in the Family,” I found this scene in which Reiner’s character, Mike “Meathead” Stivic gets into an argument about gun control with his father-in-law, Archie Bunker.

What’s funny…and sad…about this episode is how the arguments haven’t changed in 50+ years.

And because of the Archie Bunker mentality, with the backing of the 2008 Heller decision that ignored the “well-regulated militia” language to allow for individuals to have guns, we are a country where guns are everywhere and mass shootings are becoming more and more frequent.

Just this past weekend, as students at Brown University were taking final exams, a gunman entered the campus’ engineering building, and shot several people, killing two students. The campus and surrounding neighborhoods were on a lockdown for several hours. Parents and friends were panicked. Initially, police brought in a person of interest for questioning. However, it turns out they have not caught the masked gunman and the search continues.

While this was happening in the United States, in Austrailia, two gunmen, a father and son duo, opened fire on the hundreds of Jews who had gathered at Bondi Beach outside of Sydney for a “Hanukkah by the Sea” event, killing at least 15 and wounding scores of other people. The police killed the 50 year-old father. The 24 year-old son is in the hospital. Both appeared to have been radicalized by the Islamic State, which has operations in India and the Phillipines. This attack is the deadliest in Austrailia since 1996.

The shooting at Brown University was the 380th mass shooting recorded in the United States this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Austrailian authorities are talking about how to strengthen their already strong gun laws.

In the United States, we’re still “thinking and praying” for the victims of gun violence.

It is an embarrassment that the students at Brown are so used to armed gunmen entering their schools that all of the undergrads and graduate students knew exactly what to do. Even when police arrived on the scene and began battering a door and announcing themselves, the students sat stone cold silent and still.

This is not OK.

All of this is happening during this month when the world normally settles down to pause and breathe in the various holidays: Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa. A time when candles are lit in the northern hemisphere to chase away the creeping darkness of shorter days and longer nights.

But as I reflect on this brokenness, especially the awful deaths of Rob and Michelle Reiner, I am reminded that what they stood for is still an ideal that hasn’t died with them. And, in fact, if we want to honor them, and the lives of those taken by gun violence, we need to do what the forces of evil are so good at doing: double-down.

Double-down on our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Double-down on our belief in democracy and the rule of law which holds power in check and people accountable for their misdeeds.

Double-down on our compassion and kindness to others.

Double-down on our belief that Love overcomes death…and is the answer to fear…hatred…and division.

For the sake of Rob and Michelle Reiner, Rep. Melissa and Mark Hortman, students killed at Brown University, Jews shot at Bondi Beach in New South Wales, and even for Charlie Kirk…yes, even for him: We must commit to the hard work of rejecting violence and extremism, denouncing hatred and division, and building toward a time and a place where everyone is treated with respect and dignity.

Shalom and peace be with this world.