Dear Cranberry Sauce,

It’s that time of year again to embrace you with an open heart. A lot of your fans are ready to devour you. Good memories of you flood my brain and give me happy thoughts. I’m eager to make more memories of you this holiday season with turkey, stuffing, candy yams, macaroni & cheese, and mixed vegetables.

Like biscuits with honey or cereal with milk, you and those foods work well together. You all are The Avengers of Food. Touching souls and hearts during the holidays. This is the perfect time for you with so much negative news consuming the world.

I believe cranberry sauce with Thanksgiving/Christmas can stop the wars that give the Earth sleepless nights. Maybe instead of sending money/resources, Congress should send lots of cranberry sauce cans overseas. That with some warm holiday food could take the blues away for good. One can only hope.

In the meantime, typing words and hoping they can help turn the negative tide will continue to be the game plan for now, and Thanksgiving/Christmas food with cranberry sauce.

Sincerely,

WE SAY THAT OUR ACTIONS ARE DONE IN THE NAME OF GOD.
The almighty creator who can do no wrong and across all doctrines
speaks of mercy, peace, and humility.
What kind of benevolent God would sanction this?

Did God tell you to murder babies in their sleep?
Incinerating incubators
Massacre lives that have yet to begin
while mothers hold their dead children
Feeling like failures for not being able to protect them
from a fight they never even asked to join?
Did God tell you to
plant an air strike against a hospital of the weak, and sick who are already fighting
death long enough to see the sunrise tomorrow?
Did God ask for any of this?
Or maybe you don’t really mean the version of ‘God’ you claim lives in the sky
and you secretly mean yourselves?

Governing entities gone mad with power
corrupted by corporate greed and claims to land that existed for centuries before a single person propagating or being subjected to this conflict were even an inkling of a thought.
Religion has become so embedded in the framework
of our governments that they’ve twisted the script,
used the Bible as a liability
and manipulated every single one of us
into thinking that the circle of men pulling strings
behind comfortably closed closets are God.

They don’t want you to pray for your own well-being
They want you to praise them
And think that continuing to behave as pasteurized cattle will help you fulfill God’s will
When in reality, you’re just giving them what they want.
More power
More control
More land.
If we don’t stop them here,
they will keep going.
Ravage every corner of this Earth
claiming to create the promise land
but the only thing that will be promised
is their claim to even more land.

HOW MANY MORE BABIES HAVE TO DIE BEFORE YOU SEE THIS?
How many more cultures have to be eradicated before you finally believe
what is happening on every one of our phone screens?
Of course we can deny confidence in the death toll of people we don’t even see as human beings.
What makes you feel they are any less human than me
or your own mother?
Because they were born on the ‘wrong’ side of a border?
Was that god’s mistake?
Is it because their family’s family picked the ‘wrong’ religion to follow?
Was that god’s mistake?
But oh no, I thought God didn’t make any mistakes????
So please,
tell me when you’re ready to admit if whether this is really God or have you been using him as an excuse?
We all know what true
but real change won’t come until you acknowledge this. #freepalestine

Last night, I didn’t sleep well, as I had several nightmares. I was haunted by the endless images I saw in the news: A young woman’s naked, lifeless, unconscious (possibly deceased) body being paraded around as a trophy after Hamas attacked young people at a music festival in Israel, a 25-year-old woman begging for her life as she was taken as a hostage and babies whose faces were covered in dust and blood from the bombs thrown near their homes.

When I awoke this morning, I immediately read the news to see the latest. And while the horror continues on the other side of the world, I was also disheartened to learn that hate was just outside my doorstep.

People at rallies down the street from where I slept last night are wearing, holding, and celebrating images of swastikas and promoting anti-semitic rhetoric. For the first time in my life, I was and am scared to be Jewish.

While I have been doing my best to educate myself through the news, friends, and online resources, I am not going to sit here and pretend I fully understand the conflict between Palestine and Israel – because I don’t. And I know that it’s natural and easy to see the world through the lens of my own experiences and identity.

However, we all, myself included, should see and feel our humanity reflected in every person on this planet. And act accordingly.

As I try to process these last few days, the violence happening in the Middle East is not just about me, or any one group of people or politics. This cruel attack on innocent people is about all of us. It is a threat to all of humanity.

No child, no person, whether they share my background or not, whether Palestinian or Israeli (or any other culture, race, or religion), deserves to live or die in such an inhumane way.

There are a lot of issues we can’t and won’t agree on in this world. But we universally should believe in and tirelessly advocate for love, compassion, and peace for all people.

And sadly, right now, that’s not the case.

I am scared and heartbroken as I pray for the victims of violence, our world, and humanity.

Dear Virgin Galactic And The Tourists,

It’s been over a week since you all flew to a place very few have had an opportunity to see in person. Space! It’s well-known and mysterious at the same time, because of the places we don’t know that’s out there.
The morning I had the privilege to see you all take that incredible ride into space, It started off as a typical morning. I turned my tv and went to CBS News because that channel gives me comfort. Plus I really like the reporters they have on that channel. They do an outstanding job of covering news.

When CBS News came up, it showed two reporters talking as usual about a current event that happened.A few minutes later, CBS showed your ship and your crew about to take off in space. I was so excited to see what was going on with you and the people you would be taking along for the ride.

The crew members look so calm going up high in the sky. I was excited but nervous for them as I watch them rise up, like a person who had just discovered high self-esteem. When the tourists started to float out of their seats, I couldn’t believe it. I had seen that happen in so many movies on space. But to see it happen for real was surreal to me.

When you reach out in the space, I was thrilled like the tourists and couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Seeing Earth like it looks in science books was too much for me. Seeing that bright light that looked like the sun made an already unreal experience even more unreal to me.

”Space is real. Earth how it looks in various pictures is real. The sun is real too. Floating in space is real also”, I thought.

I would get nervous, hoping that nothing bad would happen to you all being up there in space. Thankfully, you all would eventually landed back on Earth a couple minutes later.

If I was feeling various emotions from watching your flight experience, I can’t imagine what it must of felt like to actually live the experience. So thank you for giving me (and others who watched it) a taste of the space life.

Sincerly,