In times like these, we have to help one another.

If you are like me, you are depressed that we live in a country that could elect someone like our current president. You knew the United States was deeply flawed, but you didn’t think it was so deeply soul sick as to elect someone who is so horrible in so many ways to be President of the United States.

If you are like me, you see how greed, cowardice, and lust for power have so weakened the systems that should be a check on someone like our current president. You see the reality that the Republicans will likely do nothing to bring this national nightmare to an end and will do almost anything to prolong it as long as it is in their self-interest to do so.

If you are like me, you see expressions of racism, religious nationalism, sexism, xenophobia, and antagonism towards persons who are LGBTQ and Muslim that you thought you would never see at this level at this time in our national experience.

It is easy to be so overwhelmed by all this and to simply want to give up; maybe just tend to our gardens and take care of our friends and family and avoid the toxicity of the established environment. Yes, gardening and taking care of our friends and family should be part of our response. It is part of resistance to the current established environment. But we must also find a way of taking care of each other on a larger scale and in the larger community of our society.

Freedom and justice have never been won easily or without a struggle in the history of humankind. Perhaps we thought that our big national struggles on these fronts were in the past, but they are not. They are here right now. Now is our time to take care of each other so we can join in this struggle together.

It is natural to be down. It is natural to want to give up. But people and the planet are counting on us to pick up the mantle and join the ongoing and urgent struggle for freedom and justice in times like these.

In times like these, we have to help one another.