Dull Dread: Inauguration Day 2025

Last updated on: January 21, 2025 at 5:07 pm By Christine Schmertz Navarro

I celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. today rather than the new president. Unfortunately, my dull dread is that during this administration, vulnerable people will lose housing, food, healthcare, and other benefits that they desperately need to live. His presidency is a threat to social justice. President Donald Trump I think of the voters who elected Donald Trump. I hope that they benefit from this presidency as promised. Will non-voters realize that each vote matters? My dull dread comes from fears... Read more

I Feel Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Post-Election

Last updated on: November 25, 2024 at 6:33 pm By Christine Schmertz Navarro

I have been stuck since the 2024 election. The phrase “between a rock and a hard place” describes my inability to see a way out. The outcome for president, primarily, stunned me. American voters chose a convicted felon guilty of fraud and sexual assault rather than a highly qualified vice president who is a former senator, state attorney general, and prosecutor. I have since learned the outcome was due to some voters’ misunderstandings about the election’s ramifications. Some immigrants thought... Read more

Husbands Should Not Influence Wives’ Voting

Last updated on: November 2, 2024 at 1:12 pm By Christine Schmertz Navarro

The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave women the right to vote in 1920. After decades of advocacy, civil disobedience, incarceration, marches, and other activities, many women began to exercise this right. Discriminatory voting practices in some states wrongly made it difficult for minority women to vote until years later. Unfortunately, we have witnessed efforts to restrict voting in the twenty-first century. Some believe that wives who vote differently than their husbands violate the sanctity of marriage. Jesse Watters’... Read more

No Matter the Election Outcomes, God Remains

Last updated on: October 19, 2024 at 3:53 pm By Christine Schmertz Navarro

God has been in Christian Nationalism conversations and Project 2025. If you could read my mind, you might conclude that God is on the ballot this November. As the election approaches, my anxiety has grown. I have been vigorously writing letters to voters in swing states, with the help of an organization called Vote Forward. I stop myself and realize that I cannot do anything else but pray, write my letters, and use my one vote. God will not abandon... Read more

Project 2025 Erases Members of American Society

Last updated on: October 11, 2024 at 4:27 pm By Christine Schmertz Navarro

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise proposes to erase American citizens. They wish to eliminate language about them in government documents. As a predominately white and male organization, the Heritage Foundation wants to make decisions about the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, women who think equal pay for equal work is reasonable, and women who want to make decisions about their bodies. This is an excerpt from Project 2025. The next conservative President must make... Read more

Talented Liturgical Musicians Bless Us

Last updated on: September 14, 2024 at 3:11 pm By Christine Schmertz Navarro

Two musicians named Bob have blessed us, the local Catholic community, for decades. The first Bob is partly retired after years of leading congregants in song. The second Bob recently passed away. I do not think I encountered musicians as talented as the Bobs until I moved to the West Coast. An exception might be St. Augustine’s Gospel Choir in Washington, DC, but comparing a musician who cantors to a choir is unfair. Both Bobs were refreshingly open to different... Read more

I Question the Reality of Some Republicans

Last updated on: September 6, 2024 at 5:15 pm By Christine Schmertz Navarro

Part of my concern about the upcoming presidential elections is that some, not all, Republicans seem stuck in a world that I do not think exists. I Have Higher Expectations for Elected Officials My first sense of the unreal world occurred during the Obama administration. Congressional leaders such as Mitch McConnell did not want to cooperate with Barrack Obama and thus tried to block many initiatives he had. I remember thinking, “Are these adults still in middle school?” When McConnell... Read more

Would God Agree with J.D. Vance about Women?

Last updated on: September 3, 2024 at 5:39 pm By Christine Schmertz Navarro

J.D. Vance has suggested that all women should be mothers. Once these women reach menopause, their role is to help raise their grandchildren. First, there are multiple reasons why women are not mothers. Second, childbearing is a sensitive issue. Does Vance believe God has revealed to him the vocation of half the world’s people? God Calls Women in Varied Ways J.D. Vance may have had an epiphany when he had children, and his wife became a mother. For some reason,... Read more

God Expects Followers to Respect Immigrants

Last updated on: August 13, 2024 at 2:49 pm By Christine Schmertz Navarro

Immigrants, illegal and legal, are subject to misinformation and mistreatment. God wants people to treat immigrants or aliens with respect. In the Exodus, God acts to free the Israelites after the Egyptians enslaved them when they were aliens. The Old Testament teaches that God’s followers must respect and help vulnerable people: the widow, the orphan, and the alien. God reminds his people that they were once immigrants. Immigration descendants comprise a large percentage of Americans today. Unless one is of... Read more

Moving Mom into Memory Care

Last updated on: August 9, 2024 at 1:07 pm By Christine Schmertz Navarro

I have not been writing lately because my siblings and I recently moved my mother into Memory Care and prepared her home for sale. We saw her early stages of dementia progress though are unsure if she has Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. We hoped to spare her a spinal tap to determine which form. What is the Right Thing to Do? I struggle to make decisions related to loved ones. Can I afford to fly across the country... Read more

What does "do not worry about tomorrow" teach?