Sometimes, when I look at the news in the morning, just before the sun rises, I wonder if they haven’t taken the moon away, it seems so dark. It seems that every day, we are confronted with hatred, violence, judgement, division a kind of social brutality.

It isn’t natural, it isn’t normal, it isn’t healthy.

Leaders don’t lead, politicians don’t negotiate, ideologues and fanatics won’t listen, and there is no end to the aggressive moments and clashes in our culture. Now, even the murder of innocents is becoming routine, ritualized and with its own rhythms and empty posturing.

Everyone rushes to take up their positions, we never seem to get to the grief and pain together. On the nightmare that cable news has become, we are honing our new national ideology of hatred and finger-pointing. No one takes responsibility for anything.

I keep thinking this is enough now, surely this is enough. But we can’t to get to enough any longer, or even know what it is.

How do I deal with this? How do I survive and transcend it? How do I survive it?

I am fortunate. The Better Angels save me.

They are everywhere if you look for them and open yourself up to them. Every day, I get messages from the Better Angels, they send me crumpled old $5 and $10 bills so that I can try to do good. Some send me $500 or $1,000 to do good.

There are a lot of good people out there, Better Angels, I hear from them every day, we call them the Army Of Good, but they are just us ordinary people wanted to find the Better Angels in each of us. We are doing it, it can be done.

Maria is a Better Angel, she has a great big and loving heart. So is Red, who does good every day. Better Angels are everywhere. Next door. Down the block.

If you are hurting, think of them when it seems like too much.

Seek them out, talk to them, they will nourish and replenish you. I can’t tell you how many days I stand outside of my Post Office Box with tears in my eyes, thinking of how much trust and love and feeling there is.

They are everywhere, in every town, city and state. They are neighbors and friends, they are the voiceless, disenfranchised, ignored.

You will never see a Better Angel on cable news, on these disgraceful panels of shouters.

They do not, as a rule, call attention to themselves, or brag about what they have done.

They sustain me, in all forms, in every way. They are always here when I need them to be here.

Sometimes my donkeys are better angels, they are without guile and full of love and intuition, a role model for us humans. Dogs are often Better Angels. They bring us a pure love.

Fate and Bud are better angels as well, they are about nothing but love and loyalty. Better Angels aren’t only human. They live in gardens, blue birdbaths, misty hills, trees in the forest, beautiful skeins of yard, songbirds at first light.

It isn’t what I see on television that matters, or what I see on my phone. It’s what you see with your own eyes in your own lives.

The Better Angels come every night to me to remind me that there is still a moon, there is always a moon, there will always  be color and light if you can see it and look for it in the right places.

Pain is not avoidable in this world, but misery is a choice. I choose a different way.

This weekend, my heart was filled with darkness, but here I am, on Monday, alive and well and clacking away on my blog, then  heading out to get my eyes worked on a bit.

I think my doctor is a Better Angel too, she is working hard to keep me in sight, I shudder to think of a world without her.

I thank the Better Angels.  I think I am becoming to worship them. They have never failed me or abandoned me or spoken poorly of our world, imperfect as it is.

They are quiet but powerful, shy but somehow very loud. They save me and sustain me. I hope they can sustain you.