3/4/2021

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Another busy day for you. I will spend mine watching videos of novice teachers talking about their inquiry projects completed as part of their MA degrees. Collecting data while teaching is a tall order, made even more challenging in the times of CV. I hope they did some interesting work so I can pass them.

            I find myself in a spiritual place this morning – both uplifted & downcast. Uplifted as I read about Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who got himself into hot water for closing a prayer in the House Chambers by saying, “amen & awomen” and evoking “the name of the monotheistic God, Brahma, and ‘god’ known by many names, by many different faiths.” Did you know he had a long tenure as a civil rights advocate as Rev & Mayor of Kansas City? My uplift was tempered by the fact that his life was threatened on Jan 7 by a guy that the FBI just arrested.

I was uplifted as I read about Ma Kyal Sin (MKS). She was featured in today’s NYT article about women at the forefront of the movement. According to Dr. Miemie Winn Byrd, “they are unarmed, but they are the true warriors” & are defying the general’s view of women as weak. I smiled at their “defiant creativity” of stringing “up clotheslines of women’s sarongs, called htamein, to protect protest zones, knowing that some men are loath to walk under them.” The hope I found in reading about protest organizers, Esther Ze Naw and Ma Ei Thinzar Maung, was moderated by my dismay from the knowledge that MKS was shot in the head.

As I find myself grieving for MKS & the other victims in Burma, I also worry about the souls of the shooters. They will suffer spiritual distress for the rest of their lives & may take it out on everyone around them. I hope you’ll talk to Sec of Vet Affiars Denis McDonough about the moral trauma that plagues our vets. As Catholics, I’m sure that you understand how learning to kill goes against our better angels & needs to be treated to prevent further harm.

HYITL,