Having been a fan of daytime soap operas — I was watching one when the news blasted the fact that President John Kennedy had been shot — I never imagined days when TV news was like a terrible serial, a soap opera of sorts.

The city of Santa Fe’s reaction was swift, everything shut down and church bells tolled almost unceasingly. It didn’t bring him back, nothing could, but we bent our knees and bowed our heads in reverence.

I sat hoping that someone or some governing body would do something to stop the riot in Washington, DC when thousands of people stormed in, seeking to change an election that couldn’t be changed.

Our elected leaders were rushed to safety as the angry mob breached normally safe places where the nation’s business was being conducted.

This wasn’t a First Amendment-protected issue. This wasn’t peacefully protesting, it was all-out war.

The United States watched. Some were supporting the spokespeople in the crowd, while others wanted them arrested, charged, held accountable.

Here’s where patience has a role to play.

Here’s where prayer has a role to play.

The Inauguration the crowd wanted to halt will go on Jan. 20 and my prayer is that it will proceed peacefully. We will have a new president and vice president and my newer prayer is that they will be what an injured nation needs to heal.

In my mind, there is no room for hatred. May the spaces in other people’s minds that can be filled with its dark sewage be filled with shiny hope.

We have work to do, each and every one of us. The behavior of many has eclipsed the tragedy of us all. Thousands of people die each day as COVID – 19 and its offshoot race through our world. We are seeking vaccines and medical protocols and I, for one, decry the selfishness that raged in our nation’s capital.

The pandemic should not be political. No one is born a member of a specific political party, we learn that later in life.

Hatred is also learned.

Turn off the soap opera and let’s get back to caring for one another.