September, 2026
Letter from the Vineyard, September 2026
So much lost…
During a long, lovely lunch with Cynthia Hubbard, who’d been interim pastor at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, which I attend, we shared much, including our mutual disbelief 9/11 was a quarter of a century ago. More than a generation has grown up since then, not alive at that moment, simply history to them.
I was living in New York, two blocks above the evacuation zone, on Spring Street in Soho. History was happening; I was witnessing it. The history didn’t just happen that one day. That day, the days that followed, then the weeks, months, years, now decades. 9/11 was a boulder hurled into the ocean of life.
I was a witness, will die a witness.
There are mental snapshots I have of what happened that day, the ones following. I will die with those pictures seared into my brain, of the best and worst of humanity.
The world gathered around us, embraced us, cherished us, grieved with us, shocked at what had happened.
We have squandered all that love thrown at us, down the drain in Afghanistan, Iraq, Abu Ghraib, African adventures, and now Iran. We have squandered trillions of dollars. We have squandered our country out of wealth and world position. In twenty-five years, we have evolved to this: the MAGA era, defined by idiocy, cruelty, greed, attacking those who stood with us, fought with us in our foolish wars, have helped us, again and again and again.
Relationships are never perfect. Alliances are never perfect. Our current government has chosen not to make relationships and alliances better but to break with those with whom it disagrees. We chose in the post WWII years to help a world renew itself, a good thing and in doing so created an American era. We chose to pay because we could. Because it was good for us.
Right now a kind of rage burns in me, a rage coming from having been there, seen the damage done by planes flying into those buildings, from having lived through those days and, now grown old, witnessed our wasting of good will, of endless war producing no good, of somehow allowing ourselves to sink into the slop of this current time, one more time engaging in an unnecessary war, which now seems to be spiraling, perhaps out of control.
So much has been unnecessary these last 25 years.
We have acted like an empire while hiding behind democratic ideals. We have done good; we have done evil. After the Spanish American War, we took the Philippines. When they wanted independence, we squashed it with despicable violence. [Thank you, Paul Dolman]
As a country we have never faced up to the responsibility of allowing slavery to exist in what became the United States, a tension which tears us asunder as some still treat people of color badly [hey, Secretary Hegseth!].
We are currently flirting with Fascism in a way we haven’t since the 1930’s. I am working to get copies of “The Nerd Reich,” about Silicon Valley billionaires who think democracy inconvenient to their goals, so popular it is on backorder everywhere.
Racism is inherent in this administration, causing me to think of the cry for Aryan children in 1930’s Germany.
Trump has promised $5000 to every American if Republicans are reelected this fall. I don’t think even in ancient Rome vote buying was this blatant. Who is paying for this largesse for reelecting Republicans? J.D. Vance is pleading, begging for Americans to give them more time to rectify the problems. Rectify problems they have created, not Biden [as they constantly chant].
The people who elected Trump are now being hurt by him. Farmers, ranchers, long haul truckers, the working class who thought he heard them. The things he’s doing aren’t helping them but hurting them, hurting me, hurting you.
A judge has ruled Trump, and his administration, must give notice before they do anything structurally to the Kennedy Center. Mr. Trump is having a temper tantrum because his name is not on the building. It’s not pretty; people are catching on.
The Kennedy Center is a treasure, created with priceless gifts from other countries, to honor a man, however flawed, who captured our imagination, lifted us to strive for something better.
Mr. Trump does not seem to want us to strive for something better. He does not call us to be something more. He calls us to be something less. We have elected him twice; it says much about our country.
Photo courtesy of Paul Doherty
