Here We Are

Wednesday morning.
Not much has changed.

Results are not finalized in the US election. It will be close -- again. Once again the popular vote will go to the Democratic candidate. The electoral vote will be close. The few states that remain in play are so close that even with 95% of the vote counted, they are too close to call.

I'm disappointed.
I'm also pretty privileged in that my life will not change much. I live in a deeply red part of the country. The pandemic is denied and slowly spreading, so we will stay at home. Our state government will continue to be red and will continue to oppress the marginalized segments of the population.

I will do what I've been doing.
I will help others when and where I can.  
I will encourage others to help when and where they can.
I will struggle to love those that oppose my efforts to love the people that they do not love.

Everybody wants to be on the winning team. But my recent life struggle has been in moving away from the binary systems of winners and losers, rich and poor, right and left, conservatives and liberals, good and evil, straight and queer, black and white.
Most of life happens in the grey, in-between areas of life. I live between liberal and conservative. I live in the grey. From the middle you can see that the sides do not communicate with each other -- they yell at each other. I think that the majority of us live in the middle with tendencies toward one side or the other. I don't think that the middle is represented very well in our government.

I'll take care of the people that I can.
Today I am going to send a glass tubed, bourbon infused cigar to a Vietnam vet so that he can have it to smoke on November 10th, the birthday of the US Marine Corps. An annual cigar is his way of celebration and remembrance; his way of honoring his fellow vets that are no longer with us. Sharing a decent cigar from my humidor allows me to honor his service.

Do something kind for someone today. Add a little good to your area of the world -- today.
Share something good. Go ahead -- brag on yourself a little. Tell me something -- big or small -- that you did or are doing for someone else.
Lift my spirits. Restore my faith n humanity. Tell me something good.

John