On My List

 Right at the moment several government agencies are on my list. Let's start with the Post Office.  I get the magazine Living With Christ each month.  I never got the March issue.  I assumed that it must have been torn up by postal machines or delivered to the wrong address and thrown away. But, no, at the very end of March, a week after I had received the April issue, the March issue arrived.  It was largely not useful by the time it arrived.  A couple of important tax documents from my bank never arrived in January and I had to get the information in a different way.  These are only the most recent problems with the post office.

Then there is the IRS.  Last August they sent me a letter that they had not received my payment which I sent in June.  This was not true, because they just hadn't opened and deposited it.  I never got any explanation or apology from the IRS. In fact, I haven't received the latest stimulus payment either. I don't even know where to start to try to figure that out.

I am supposed to be called again for jury duty in August.  I imagine that will be a nightmare.  I have never had federal jury duty before.  I have never actually been on a jury.  Mostly jury duty for me has been sitting in a big room waiting to be called or told to go home.  Someone explained it to me this way--the hope it that civil cases can be settled out of court.  But, sometimes the parties don't get serious about solving situations until the court date.  The fact that potential jurors are sitting there waiting to hear the case makes the settlement possible.  But, I don't know if federal court has civil cases or if it is all criminal.  I really hope not to hear a criminal case.  As I recall parking and lunch were the biggest problems with jury duty.  I am not looking forward to that.

I am very dismayed by the police brutality and by all the murders and mass murders happening lately.  This isn't the fault of a particular government agency.  In my  opinion government won't be able to solve these kinds of problems in the long run.  Love, love of stranger, love of enemies, love for each other.  Love seems to me to be the answer.  Anyway, I will try to find some love in my heart for the post office and the IRS and the courts. I am thankful to live in a country that has those things, even if human execution of the service sometimes seems flawed.  Love is the answer.  I am just not sure how.