Loving our country is working for good government.

To love our earth demands good stewardship.

Love endures.  
John Lewis' life was a message of love.  
He exemplified the conviction that a great nation is a compassionate nation.

He kept moving with love in his heart.  
"Let's honor him by getting into good trouble."  
We will not be quiet,
we are "One country, one destiny,"
We will share the bounty of this earth.

A  Mother's Love: Roberta Wright McCain dies at 108

John McCain's mother was undoubtedly proud of his achievements. But predisposed to decorum and modesty, and always holding her children to a higher standard, she thought he talked in public and appeared on TV just a little too much.

John McCain grew up in a household steeped in naval tradition; his father and grandfather were US admirals. But they were often at sea: the job of raising John and his two siblings fell to their mother. John's mom impacted his life in profound ways. In his speech to the Republican National Convention in 2008, John McCain said, "I wouldn't be here tonight but for the strength of her character."

Does Mitch McConnell give a care about the stress millions of Americans are suffering as they're left hanging with the insecurity of losing their homes, unable to care for their families? all in the midst of a raging pandemic Trump says is all but behind us.

To do another four years of damage to our country and Americans is too much to ask.  
Love is all about healing and uniting as a country.

An AstraZeneca vaccine trial volunteer died Monday.  
No details are yet known,  
and there are no plans to stop the vaccine trial.    
There is no greater gift than love.

Barack Obama is balm for frayed nerves.

"She's a white evangelical who is 'pro-life' and voting for Biden. J Duford is Billy Graham's granddaughter (niece of Franklin Graham) and says, 'This president (Trump) doesn't represent our faith.' She is encouraging fellow white evangelicals to distance themselves from a president who she says is trying 'to hijack our faith for votes.' She is part of a movement that interprets 'pro-life' in a broader way than the Republican Party does, evangelicals for whom 'pro-life' also places great value on life outside the womb, and as a practical matter supports contraception and family planning. One white evangelical group declares in a video: 'We know you need the support of Christians like us to win this election. But you can't have it. Not our vote. Not our faith.'

"The Biden campaign recognizes there are white evangelicals distancing themselves from Trump, and is advertising heavily on Christian radio stations.

("There is nothing inherently conservative about evangelical Christianity: Black evangelicals mostly vote Democratic, and let us not forget former President Jimmy Carter.)

"A similar ferment is also apparent among Catholics. 'I am voting for Joe Biden because I am 'pro-life,' Sister Mary Traupman, a Catholic nun, wrote to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Family separation at the border, environmental degradation, denial of health care to the poor are not 'pro-life' policies.

"The Rev Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest who is the founder and Director of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, says he has never endorsed a candidate in any race until now, but now he endorses Biden. 'This is a vote for the soul of the nation. This is not about partisan politics. It's about truly choosing life.' "

with attribution to Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, Oct 21, 2020 

"The greatest commandment is love,"

We live in a nation that is in transition. We're not learning to live with covid-19, we have been learning to die with covid-19... the future will be different from the past. The world itself is in transition -- political, cultural, environmental -- moving toward something new and at times frightening. In such a context, the great temptation is to circle the wagons, to secure ourselves, and too often, to harden our hearts.

During apartheid in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu used to tell this joke:    
"A drunk crossed the street to accost a perplexed pedestrian and asked, 'I shay, which is the other shide of the street?' Nonplussed, the pedestrian replied, 'That side of course!'  'Shtrange,' said the drunk, 'when I wash [on] that shide, they shaid it was thish shide.' "

Question: When is this side the other side?  
Tutu interrupted the rigid definitions of sides that shaped South Africa during apartheid. He scrambled their deep assumptions about "sides" in South Africa -
It's time for us to listen to Tutu here in the U.S. and move into a new national unity, without rigid "sides"

starting with masks and social distancing, it's time for the ideologies that divide us to begin to disappear.

We are reminded to "Love our neighbor as ourself."  Let us also remember we cannot truly love God if we do not love our neighbors.    
The greatest commandment is love: the Whole Law is summed up with the word LOVE.

"Who was that masked man?"  
Someone who cares about you.

"How is anyone to believe we care about virtues of any sort -- love, compassion, humility, service over self, basic decency when Trump so persistently embodies the opposite?  
"If supporting Trump is what it means to be a conservative, a 'pro-lifer', a Christian, I want no part of it."    
-- Matt Kaufman, The Bulwark, October 25, 2020

The greatest commandment is love.

The Catholic vote is up for grabs in 2020. In 2016, Catholics and white evangelicals voted proponderantly for Trump. This year, neither presidential candidate seems able to get a grip on a Catholic bloc. In typical Trump fashion, Trump called himself the "best president in the history of the Catholic Church" in a phone call with Catholics on the line. Fifteen hundred Catholic leaders, priests, and theologians responded in an open letter: "There is nothing 'pro-life' about Trump's agenda."          
"Trump violates a core Catholic teaching: respect for life. Throughout his term, he has restored federal capital punishment, put immigrant children in cages, and reversed protections for the environment. Oh, and he lies."  
-- Mary Jo McConahay, Tribune News Service, October 6, 2020

The greatest commandment is love.

We're ready for compassion in the White House.

Chanting "We love you" to Trump has nothing to do with the greatest commandment.

It's easier to forgive someone who has a sense of remorse.

Invoking the 25th amendment could be a deep expression of love of country by Vice President Michael Pence.  
Pence of all people understands the threat of the insurrection at the Capitol last Wednesday.    
His blind loyalty to Trump creates a national security failure.

Martin Luther King, Jr.  
January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968
Martin Luther King is best known for advancing civi rights through non-violence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the non-violent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.

After the riot at the Capitol, we can celebrate the power of non-violence.  
"Violence solves no social problems; it merely creates new and more complicated ones.  
Non-violence is not a method for cowards; it does resist. The non-violent resister is just as strongly opposed to the evil against which he protests as is the person who uses violence.    
Non-violence is directed at changing conditions rather than individuals - directed at forces of evil rather than persons who are caught in those forces... at the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.  
Love can be escalated endlessly with no harm done."

Martin Luther King believed love can be a muscular transformative force if we practice it with enough intensity. He believed this because he trusted that "the universe is on the side of justice."

Liz Cheney is a partisan, but above all she loves our country and reveres the Constitution. She is a patriot.

The officers who protected and defended the Capitol on January 6th showed a measure of love and commitment to faithful service our Senators should aspire to.