I’m writing this after a restless night, the result of an image I saw before going to bed. I’ve seen many of the horrific abuses being done to our immigrant brothers and sisters, but this one left me speechless.

Two men in uniform are smashing the driver’s side window of a car as they are grabbing a woman behind the wheel, who looks to be in her forties or fifties. She’s speaking Spanish to the woman who is crying and filming from the passenger seat as these men bark at her and drag her out of the car. I saw this image shortly after I watched a commercial where a government representative told all illegal immigrants to leave our country or face the consequences.

Like you, I spend many days asking how this can possibly be America. How did we allow this to happen?

These questions trouble me in ways so deep it’s sometimes hard to carry on with normal life.

But I think the most difficult thing I’m wrestling with is all the people I’ve known and loved my entire life who not only voted for this but are cheering on these horrors being inflicted on our fellow human beings.

These are people who’ve been there for me throughout my life, who I’ve laughed and cried with. These are the people who I believed would be by my side until I left this earth, but I’ve not spoken to any of them since the inauguration and these horrors began to unfold.

It’s not because I no longer love them. It’s because I’m no longer certain that we hold common ground. It’s because I find it hard to laugh and joke with them knowing what is happening is something they support.

If you’d have asked me I would have told  you that they are all good and kind people and would never celebrate harm being inflicted on others.

But the fact that they would vote for this hateful, vindictive man, let alone applaud these violent and abusive actions has left me wondering. Can you be a good and kind person and still celebrate violence inflicted on others? It’s something I’m trying to understand. I’m trying to understand how many of them sit in those pews every Sunday and sing praises for Jesus, while supporting the suffering and abuse of our brothers and sisters.

I know you cannot hate others without being filled with hate yourself. I know you cannot cause harm to others unless you are someone causing harm to yourself. I know these hateful words and actions come from a lack of love within, but it is still hard to process. I have compassion for their inner pain but cannot accept their need to inflict it on others.

Loving them is not in question. My love for them has not lessened. But I’m also seeing that loving someone and accepting their actions don’t always coincide.

Hating them is not an option. How can I rail against the hatred that has taken over our country while adding more hatred to it? No, I don’t hate them at all.

I have known tragedy and heartbreak in my life, but this is one I’ve never faced before.  This has upended the foundation I built my life on. I am grateful to have a firm belief system founded in a spiritual path void of traditional religious beliefs, but it is still challenging to ingest all that is happening. Some days I have to unplug from all of it and get very quiet. Going within and connecting with whatever it is that created all of us. It’s the only way I’ve found that is helping me survive this insanity.

My greatest hope is that they’re so insulated in their bubbles of propaganda that they are  oblivious to what’s actually happening. That the selective news they watch is feeding them only what they choose to hear and not the truth of the pain and destruction raining down on the world as a result of their choice, and that when they realize the truth they will withdraw their support.

I have no delusions of an immediate ‘kumbaya’ revival. Figuring out what takes over a person that allows them to be indifferent to the suffering of others is beyond my pay grade.

But I know the human heart, and I know it was built for love, compassion and support. This is evident whenever tragedy strikes. I always think of 9/11 and the stories we heard that resulted from it. How people not only helped each other regardless of the color of their skin, but gave their lives so others could live.

Whoever or whatever created us all implanted in us an innate need to be kind and compassionate. To aid each other and cooperate with each other.

How so many got so far off this path is not something I can fully explain or comprehend.

But I do know deep in my bones that love is the most powerful force in the universe, and it may be delayed, but it is never denied.

So, I continue to love those I’ve always loved, even if it’s from a distance. And I pray that one day they will remember who they really are and walk away from the hatred and division, and remember that love is their compass, and follow it.