Doing a small thing/ Despair/ What can we do?

this promises to be long, and rambling, and... but... I have to write tonight, I just do, so please bear with me if you're so inclined. (written on Wednesday night 1/25)
 
I just created two new labels now: RESIST! (can't have exclamation marks on labels) and Unprecedented Times, to go with my older and vaguely feminist "Political and Personal" label.

You know... I have a pretty charmed life, perfect really. Apart from the tough mega commute, some tensions at work, and my heart's desire to be a "real academic" somehow, I need to recognize that I have a really good job when so many people bad ones or none at all. [meta-blogging comment:] I also feel sad that I lost the precious community I had with/through this blog for several years and now I thirstily follow people's updates on facebook (which I hate with a passion) because I miss reading their blogs so much! (sigh... I will never get over this, NEVER. It's an ongoing frustration that I enjoy sharing here, but people who used to read and care about what I have to say don't anymore. Except for Jamie! Thank you so much, my friend!

Anyway... other than that (and some other issues that have more to do with my "fragmented" life), everything is good. Lovely family, husband, kids, extended family.

But I cannot be happy just for myself, and my family. I feel the need to protect the environment, to fight for social justice, to stand up for those who are oppressed, to listen with compassion to people who are different from me, to humbly recognize my privilege (even though I am also part of several minority groups), and do my part to make the world a better place. A place with more equality, less poverty and disenfranchisement, more acceptance and understanding and less racial strife and sexual discrimination (among many other things).

I am having a really really hard time living in this country now. Where millions of people are just APATHETIC because doing nothing, ignoring politics, not voting has no serious consequences for their privileged little lives (or so they think!). Instead of being upset at those who voted, I am upset at those who didn't because they didn't CARE. Because they think politics is corrupt and useless or because they were upset with the choices at hand. I am really angry at those people.

Sigh...

I am getting bitter and bitterer each moment I spend reading what my outraged friends are posting to facebook. So many bizarre things happening all at once. It's been CRAZY since last Friday -- it's hard to take it all in and not despair.

There is one small thing that is making me feel a teeny, tiny bit better right now. It's really small, but it's something.

I mentioned briefly that the network of "house churches" we are involved with sponsored three Syrian refugee families this past December (and it's giving them ongoing support). A couple of weeks ago we decided to stretch ourselves to the limit and sponsor one more family who arrived yesterday. My husband and I were co-signers on their lease.

It's a really small thing, but it's something.

I cannot think that refugees will not be coming anymore, that hard working people (whose jobs NO ONE ELSE WANTS!) will probably be sent back to their countries -- maybe with their American citizen kids (who knows?), and, perhaps saddest of all, thinking of all the people, children, elderly, who will die without health insurance.

I have to keep myself from thinking about any of these things lest I burst into tears multiple times a day.

What can we do?