Sometimes...

it is hard to take.  I'm talking about the constant barrage of bad.

I don't want to see any more videos of mutilated babies.  My heart is already broken when I think of all those lives taken.  Babies who never had the chance to find out who they were.  Or who they could become or what they could accomplish.  Babies who were then cut up like so much meat to be sold.

I don't want to see the latest method the terrorists use to kill people.  It was more than enough to see the beheadings and the crucifying and the burning in a cage and the drowning in a cage.  I don't want to see any more of the dark, evil hatred that lives in the hearts of those who can even think up those new ways to torture human beings.

I really don't want to listen to any more of the snarky insults that presidential candidates toss back and forth like a beach ball.  Are they candidates for the most powerful leader of the free world or are they third graders on the playground.  Hard to tell the difference.

I don't want to hear about any more executive orders done in secret on a Friday afternoon or a holiday weekend.  I particularly don't want to hear about the latest one that promotes the study of behavioral patterns of American citizens.  Really?  And why does our government need to know this?

I don't want to watch any more news reports about the hordes of people crossing borders, both at home and in Europe.  Or about the terrorists making their way into my back yard.  Or about our leaders allowing and encouraging this to happen.

And I really don't want to hear any more Black Lives Matter rhetoric, especially the calling for the killing of our police as recently happened just a few miles from my front door.  I would like to know, however, just who are you going to call to save your backsides when all the police are gone.  I sort of doubt that Sharpton and his ilk are going to come riding in to save the day.

Sometimes I envy those who go blithely on their way, happily ignorant of the turmoil in the world around us.  Maybe there is something to be said for keeping your head buried in the sand.  Or for staying asleep.  But for those of us who are awake and have seen these horrors, these attacks on our God given rights, this calculated effort to ruin America, there is no way to unsee it all.  And what gets to me the most is the knowledge that there is nothing I can do about it.

I can vote, but more and more that seems like a lesson in futility.  We think we are electing people who will make a difference - who will actually care about what the voters think.  Only to discover that about 15 minutes after taking the oath of office, they are ready, willing and able to begin feathering their own nests while leaving us out in the cold.

I know that I need to stay informed.  If I don't know what the danger is, I won't know how to keep away from it or how to meet it head on, whatever the case may be.  But right now I am on news overload.  I don't know whether to scream or cry.

So instead I will pour a glass of milk and grab three freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.  And when the rain stops tomorrow I will go sit on a bench and watch the Minnesota River flow lazily by on its way to the Mississippi.  And I will spend an afternoon sewing quilt pieces together.  And I will write a letter to my granddaughter in the Army, telling her how much her Grandma loves her.  And I will let the world continue to speed ahead toward disaster without my knowing about it.  Just for a day or two.  For sometimes - not very often, but sometimes - that is the only way I can deal with our world without having my head explode.