A few whiles ago, I said that I would be giving up Facebook for a period of time. While I have refrained from posting, I refrained from posting for only a few days. Part of the reason is that I had taken the opportunity to check in occasionally to see if I had any responses to previous posts.

The first response to my announcement came within half an hour after I made it – one of my loving trolls asked, “How’s your prez doing for you?” OUR President is doing quite well, thank you, despite numerous ill-intentioned attempts to besmirch his image. OUR Previous President did everything in his power to burn bridges and create havoc on his way out the door. Bad form. The actors around him haven’t done him any favors, either. I watched a five-minute clip of some lawyer for the former guy’s campaign spew nothing but useless talking points in response to legitimate questions asked of her. Add the current drama about Bannon, as well as the insistence by the former guy that he’s still relevant, and it becomes obvious that the former guy has no business being elected Dog Catcher, much less being elected President of the United States.

A bit of irony was mixed in with recent postings. For instance, this past week the reading we had for the Education for Ministry class centered on Emperor Constantine and his attempt at making Christianity the only religion in the Roman Empire. Then there was the quote which popped up over the weekend where a former official of the previous administration was saying that the United States should have just one official religion.

The framers of the Constitution must have been spinning in their graves with that one.

What really made me come back, though, was the humanity demonstrated by the vast majority of the people on my friends list. Yeah, there are a few trolls sprinkled in there to help raise my blood pressure a point or two, but for the most part, the people on my friends list are either relatives, former high school, college, or work colleagues and the occasional arts and/or athletic professionals. I find it hard not to respond to certain birthdays, milestones, or medical diagnosis which pop up with regularity on Facebook.

I also found that reading the daily dispatches from Heather Cox Richardson had become a morning habit, as much as my glass of orange juice to wash down my blood pressure pill. Her comments on the day’s events, put into historical perspective serve as invaluable reminders of why we need to be vigilant lest we lose our democracy.

Well, for better or for worse, I’m back on Facebook.

For now.

Be Seeing You!