“Look for tulips this spring”/ We are not powerless

I did write to the Episcopalian bishop, Mariann Budde, today, to thank her for asking for mercy for the vulnerable. It’s so happened that my friend Zim had this week sent me a British stamp with “The Skating Minister” on it – – from 1973! The one girlette Minnie Sutherland re-created for my Xmas card in 2020, the first winter of Covid. And I thought since the minister I was going to write to used to live here, she’d likely have skated on one of these lakes herself.

I got extra motivated to make the card (add the stamp) and actually WRITE it by seeing a comment (not on my blog): “I am so upset about Trump, but I am powerless”. 

We are not powerless! 

I may not be able to directly affect the administration, but I figure if nothing else I can support the people who are on the front lines trying to do so. Send care packages! Or whatever—there’s a million things we can do. Today, for me—a handwritten note. 

Who knows what effect a note might have – – even if it’s “just” on an aide who is tasked with reading the mail.

I only just remembered today that years ago when I was working for the K-12 school book publisher, I’d sent a geography book about Sudan that I’d edited to whomever was on the foreign relations committee related to Sudan. I have no idea now who that was except that they were a Republican I didn’t like. But I wrote to say perhaps we, the US, could do something about Darfur?

And I got the nicest personal letter back from the guy’s aide (intern?) saying how distressing the situation was and how he himself appreciated me writing and sending the book – – and that he and his boss also hoped that our country could help….

So, who knows? That was many years ago – – perhaps that intern has grown up into someone in power, someone who tries to help? Or not. 

[There’s a STORY IDEA.  What happens after some fleeting contact between strangers who will never meet (in this life 😉) again?]

We just don’t know what fruit our plantings will bear – – but we have the power to plant them.

That’s not nothing! 

This is what I wrote the Right Reverend: