The man asked his millennial daughter
why she was crying so hard. “Because
Trump won.” The man hesitated and
then asked, “Did you vote?” “No. I
was a Bernie supporter.” Shaking his
head, he said, “Well, that’s not exactly
the way it works, dear.” The man then
thought of all the millennial protesters
in cities across the country. He wonder-
ed how many of those protesting the
outcome of the election voted. In this
case, it’s not better late than never.
To use a Trump friendly phrase — A
day late and a dollar short. Well, he
thought, it is too late and they are
never going to change the outcome
from this side of history. He sighed,
bit his tongue and went to the fridge
for an ice cold one to soothe his
weary brow and dull the pain of his
deep depression.

A nature lover, more comfortable
jogging on trails than on roads,
comfortable camping, comfortable
cycling on roads through the woods,
comfortable kayaking down slow
rivers and on open water, he sits
listening to Schubert’s The Trout
and decides he will take his chances
in the woods where the wild life
is predictable in behavior without
the hate he sees in unpredictable
humans and so he laces his running
shoes and heads for the trail to
say hello very, very cautiously to
the Tiger rattler, the razor-sharp
tusked Javelina and the calm, cool
and collected Coyote.

The day after the election,
the nicely quaffed, blond

haired, white, female econ-
omic advisor and strategist

said with a smirk, “The poor
do not envy the rich; they

want to be rich and the pres-
ident-elect will definitely

deliver on that very thing,”
and I swallowed hard having

to admit that she got the
first part of that right.

What she didn’t get right
is that that is the great

American myth, in the modern
sense of the word. The poor

listen to the rich who have
no intention of allowing

the poor to become rich
but who slather snake oil

all over them and say with
that same self-serving

smirk, “Feels really good,
don’t it, Bud?”

The president-elect and his family
became the first family elect, our
first family soon to be, but soon to

be what? So far they have been
the family that is all about them-
selves and only themselves and no

one…else. They have been about
money, about glamor delivered
under knife and anesthetic, about

glitz, about privilege, about
superficiality, oh, and of course
everything that is noble and

high-minded and self-sacrificial,
and serving the best interest of
others…not, not, not, no, no, no….

Can this really be OUR first
family? How can it be when 47%
of Americans never bothered

to vote on who they wanted their
family to be? And so, like the
family we get by birth for

better and so very often for
worse and much worse, this
is the family we get by not

caring enough to cast our
vote and, of course, that
first family soon-to-be is

supposed to be everything we
admire and seek to emulate
in our better selves and

in spite of the head of that
family spewing forth hate
upon hate. Fear and hate

gave us this family; and,
so, this first family is
ours not by fate but by hate.

Driving into Moab there were
places along the way he didn’t

remember. He hopes it is be-
cause he had his eyes on the

road last time, still….They are
way out west now but because

of the season, he thinks about
falls gone before, colors chang-

ing, leaves dropping and mornings
waiting for the school bus in the

bone chilling darkness. He knew
for sure he had been there, in

part, because he remembers his
mother’s shrill voice yelling

as he left the house, “Zip up
your jacket. You’ll catch a

death of cold.”

I pushed the up button on the
elevator and waited for a few
seconds; the door opened, an
unkempt, rumpled, heavyset
man emerged rapidly and hurried
away. I stepped in and was hit
with a noxious, waft of fresh
flatulence which hung heavy
like a toxic nuclear cloud.
The door closed,the elevator
ascended and I was trapped in
Sartre’s No Exit and Kafka’s The
Trial. On the way up, hoping no
one would be waiting to get on
once the door opened, I wondered
what I would say if someone
happened to be waiting. As the
elevator slowed, I frantically
thought the truth would surely win
out, which, of course, it never
would: “I wasn’t the guy who blew
the fart! Really!” “What? Oh,
right. Sure. Oh, that’s terrible.”
It was then I wished I had the dog
with me: “Sorry, it was my dog.
He gets gas when we travel.” The
door opened and…there was no
one waiting to get on. Like the
guy who got off on the first floor,
guiltily, I hurried out of the elevator,
waving my hand behind me attempting
to dissipate the odor and hoping no
one would emerge from a room and
head to the elevator while passing
me on the way. I heard a door open
as I fumbled for my key.

He looks for the changing faces
of America and sees them in the
faces that greet him in the hall-
ways of the motels in which

he stays on his way west.
Hardly ever do the black eyes
with brown faces look his blue
eyes straight on. Those glancing

down never speak except when
spoken to. He hears them speak-
ing among themselves and so
offers, “Buenos dias, senora

or senorita.” “Buenos dias, senor.”
“Trabaja muy duro.” “Gracias.
De nada.” Or another with a
burka smiles and he simply says,

“Good morning.” In a thick accent,
she replies in kind. He thinks
about the long days and short pay
and the husbands and children

and thinks to himself the country
is in good hands, the hands that
laboriously clean the rooms and
make the beds so he could have a

good night’s sleep and so much
more importantly, so that, like his
grandparents, they can watch their
children grow-up, graduate and,

one day, thank a housekeeper at
a motel on the way west.

In my greatest desperation,
a cruciform appeared before

me, beckoning me to empty
my sorrow, grief and anxiety

in the hollow of the wood.
Then empty, I began to be

filled with the blood that drip-
ped from the place where

nails had been hammered
years before and today.

Cesar Chaves said “I am convinced that
the truest act of courage, the strongest act

of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for
others in a totally nonviolent struggle for

justice,” and, apocryphally, stated that
he was a violent man learning to be non-

violent. Cesar Chaves wins the award for
honesty about the male propensity for

violence and male blood lust and how
he, as a follower of Jesus, is seeking

a better way. Is that the way of Sophia?

We left at the height of the colors
and thought we would see many others
on the way out to the Old Wild West,
but while giving it our best
glances both left and right
most trees were already bare to the sight.