Well if you haven’t already heard, I’m happy to inform you that my girl got out of the Middle East shortly after I posted about it, and is now enjoying a little downtime in Europe with her dad. In the end, getting out was less stressful and less chaotic than any of us imagined it would be, but I’m surprised by how sad it makes me to think I won’t be returning to Jordan in the spring, most because of the reason why.

I’ve noticed, over the course of the last week, how my news consumption has plummeted. There are benign reasons–I’m listening to a lot more audiobooks this year, and I’ve got a good one going now; also it’s spring, there’s a lot to do outside getting the garden ready–but mostly, it’s the war. While my daughter was still in Amman, I put myself on need-to-know status: taking in the broad strokes, knowing the general status of things, especially in Jordan, but no more than that. It was too much; too close. Now she’s out and I’m not worried for her personal safety anymore, but I still can’t stand the news because it’s just too terrible. What we’ve already done there, and what we seem determined to do, in partnership with a regime that’s still in the process of wreaking a separate genocide, feels unbearable. It was bad enough to know that our bombs and our complicity were wiping out Gaza one family at a time; to know that it is our troops who murdered all those little girls inside their school, while our Secretary of Defense jerks off to the footage and our slurring, behatted president shrugs off the dead as “the bad part of war,” as though any good part exists…it’s more than anyone should have to bear.

I haven’t known a lot of Iranians in my life–two who stand out in my memory are a close friend of my mom’s from my childhood and a comically awful online dating experience I had a few years ago–but Iran is one of my bucket list destinations. I don’t ever expect to make it there, certainly not now, but I looked into how it might be done not that long ago. One of my favorite shows on television right now is “Tehran,” which I have to remind myself periodically is actually an Israeli show, filmed in Israel, because it does an outstanding job of portraying both the Iranian regime and Mossad as terrifying villains; the Iranian people are the heroes of the show, and your sympathies can’t help but lie with them. It’s an excellent example of how storytelling can help us empathize with people we think are different from us, and show us the ways in which we all really want the same things: freedom, safety, a better future for our children. The third season finale aired the night we attacked. I won’t spoil it, but I will say that watching it while knowing what had just happened there in real life was gut-wrenching. I rewatched the whole season over the last few nights, as is my habit when a show comes out one episode at a time, and that finale made my heart hurt.

It all just makes me so angry, and I don’t know who to be angry at: patriarchy? Organized religion? Capitalism? Are they all just different flavors of the same poisonous fruit? The idea that we have a government in this country that professes to call itself Christian and pro-life, while oil rains down on the children of Tehran, and pieces of little schoolgirls lie in mass graves, and billions of dollars that could be feeding the hungry and housing the homeless are wasted, along with the lives and futures of young people here and abroad, so that rich old men can get a little richer before they are, insha’allah, consigned to the hells they deserve…I don’t know what to do with that feeling. I don’t believe in apocalypse narratives; in fact, I think stories of the end times help to justify exactly the kind of nihilistic policies our current administration so adores. Who cares what happens to the planet or its people, when you already know you’re saved? Why should you waste time trying to preserve the beauty and biodiversity of the earth when it’s all going to be laid waste at the second coming? Still, it’s hard to watch the black columns of petroleum smoke rising to the heavens and not feel like you’re watching the end of the world. The president probably really believes he’s God’s instrument, just as Hegseth is telling his generals, and so anything he does is justifiable. The only limit I can imagine on his behavior is the knowledge that there’s no money in the afterlife, but he probably believes it can buy him immortality here–though that rot around his neck suggests otherwise. In times like this, a little part of me kind of wishes the Second Coming story were true. I’ve read the gospels, too, and I know what Jesus was about. I would honestly love to believe he’s on his way–the sooner the better–because he would *not* be happy about what’s happening here. To paraphrase the old bumper sticker, if Jesus really is coming, he’s gonna be pissed.

Sadly, I also don’t believe in Jesus as supernatural hero or master of the universe. I recognize he gives a lot of people hope, and that’s great, especially when those people actually feel motivated to embody the message of peace and love that he espoused, unlike the blasphemers currently running our country who can’t shut up about him. But you know who I do believe in? The Grim Reaper. Death, I have total confidence in. He’s got a plan for every one of us, even the most powerful men on earth, and my faith in him gives me hope. Hope that I’m around to finally see what he has in mind for Drumpf.