I am Angry

 I'm angry.

I am angry at what is happening in Afghanistan and I cannot seem to shake the anger.  

Praying, venting, writing, all the tools that usually help me rid myself of the anger that can make me less than useful to God seem to be powerless in the face of this overwhelming desire to punish someone. 

I am angry because I sent my nephew there and he watched people die and came back forever changed.

I am angry because we pretend to care about women and children all over the world, and we sit now and know these very people are being brutalized by the Taliban.  

I am angry because people in positions of power here in the United States makes stupid statements to the press about 'bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table' when they have to know that is a joke, that these people lie to get what they want just as much as we do and that they are laughing at us all the way to the bank.

I am angry because I seem to be the only person who remembers that one little article, 20 years ago, about Afghanistan being a treasure trove of minerals needed to manufacture the stuff the World uses to run our computer technology.  Why would anyone think that doesn't matter?  Why wouldn't any of you talk to Tim Cook or Bill Gates about this and why are you so convinced either one of those men care about people?  Oh, yeah...I forgot....the whole gender bathroom thing.  Yeah, that's what is important - not 8 yr old girls being raped under the guise of marriage.  I keep forgetting....

I am really angry because I can bet that people who have read this far think I am a war-mongering, Trump loving, Republican who hates Muslims.  That makes me angry because they are as much a part of this problem as I am - I am too angry to even think straight right now and they are too busy wanting to put me into a pigeon hole of their ideas of what it means to be an American and a Catholic.

I am angry.

I will continue to pray.