Wednesday, 5:00a.m. Coffee, buttered walnut/cranberry toast, a slice of hard Belgium cheese, and a dog at my side. What could be better. In my opinion? America’s choice of a leader of our land. I picked up my journal and wrote. Then I decided to share the page with you.

I’m thinking about my father. He had a nose for authentic. He could smell a rat. Fools-gold didn’t fool him, he knew that “a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” I know he would have no respect for Mr. Trump. He didn’t like show-offs. But it is possible, were he alive, being Republican, he would have voted for the man.

I’m thinking about my dad, the hard working Arizona man whom I did and do adore. I’m trying to work with reality here, this morning after Election Day. He would agree with me that the president-elect doesn’t choose friends well. We would agree that while the man has money, he is without moral or ethical worth.  My father was carelessly conservative; he didn’t think about it much. But he didn’t like liberal ideas in politics. He and Barry Goldwater went to highschool together, then as adults, they flew as small aircraft buddies. So he, being conservative, and I, loving liberality, may have  voted differently yesterday.

Let me confess. Our president-elect reminds me of Andrew Jackson, both being mud-slingers and lovers of unchecked rule. I don’t like what I’ve read about Andrew Jackson as president, or Barry Goldwater as a wanna-be (even though I loved his family department store). I don’t like one single thing about our new president-elect. No wonder then, my first post-election thought was to dig a little hole and crawl in.

I thought about Saint Francis of Assisi who, when asked, If the world was going to come to an end tomorrow, what would he do?

“I would keep on hoeing my garden.”

Then I thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who watched his family and his beloved German church fall, goose-step, in with the newly elected fascist leader, and decided not to crawl in a hole. Rather, he chose to be a caring citizen, to stay connected, to talk about what was happening to his land.

I’m not a Bonhoeffer. I think though, that I might continue hoeing my garden. I might remind myself each day to share my vegetables and my flowers with my neighbors regardless of how they voted. I hope I might be a better citizen than I am a Seahawks fan — darned team, like my country, failing to please me. But I keep hoping.

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