I admit I was hopeful Thursday.

I fantasized that the release of the Mueller report might just have the effect of getting our elected leaders back to the distant business of creating legislation that helps people rather than posturing and telling people who to love or when to have a baby.

Boy, that is a low far for hope and happiness.

A pox on both of their houses, they no longer seem able to stop hating and eating each other alive, Mueller is no longer a person but a way of life, a part of the language. Muellerism.

This morning, I stopped watching after five or six minutes, I came to the realization that there is no such thing as a Post-Mueller world, the report is simply another one-day episode in what is clearly the new reality of our lives: Muellerism is never going to go away.

I think it is true that after awhile, people just can’t stand the hate and argument that never ceases and has no boundaries.  Of course we stop paying attention, at least the normal people do. What kind of life is this for us to live?

Cable news and the left and the right are far more dangerous to the Republic than measles, and there is no vaccine for them.

I seek to live a spiritual life, not because I am holy but because I am not. Sometimes, I watch the news for 10 or 15 minutes, and I am alternately fascinated, horrified and then repulsed. No matter how hard I try to be a “good citizen”, I see again and again that this is just not my world, not my choice, not the way I seek to live.

The news reminds me of who I am, and who I am not. I wish our political leaders took a page from the Army Of Good, who chose en masse to commit small acts of great kindness rather than   argue and hate each other fighting day after day about what good means.

The term Muellerism keeps popping into my head, a state of anger, depression, confusion and hellish and eternal argument, quarrels  that are supernatural, they never reach any kind of resolution, they never end.

These people on TV are parasites and vampires to me, a disease not a government.

I read  with relief that young Christians are beginning to rise up and preach the message of the true Jesus: selflessness, welcome and compassion and forgiveness. They know what their parents forgot – hate and lying and persecution are not Christian values.

I hope the other Christians remember it one day. When they do, they will hang their heads in shame and if Jesus is the Messiah and returns, they will regret what they have done.

Imagine if Congress did the same thing as the Army Of Good and used all those Twitter feeds to raise money for the needy and the vulnerable. Imagine if they were as committed to people as they are to fighting.

What if they each just chose to help one person each day instead of giving speeches that accomplish nothing or tweets pollute the ether.

Maybe some of them are trying to do good, I’m sure they are,  I don’t mean to get cynical.

My farm is an attitude, a counterpoint. Bedlamism. A place of peace and respite.  A Peaceable Kingdom. A Creative Refuge. Here, the animals don’t waste their precious lives tearing each other down. Our morning sunsets are inspirations, full of color and emotion.

We don’t watch the news, or talk much about it. We are too busy living. It is much more enlightening to read a book or listen to music or walk with the dogs or take a photo or kiss my wife.

If there is no Post-Mueller world, just the regular Muellerism, then one day just seems to give birth to another just like it, there is no resolution.

I will have to design my own world. For me, that will be a Meaningful World, which means:

-I have no desire to spend my remaining years hating people who disagree with me, putting labels on myself or others, choking in argument and resentment. I take this oath: I swear that I will stay grounded, do good, commit small acts of kindness, help the needy the vulnerable. I am not a believer, but I am repeatedly shocked at how close this kind life matches up with the teachings of Jesus Christ, a radical prophet and defender of the poor and  despised.

– Their news is not my news, their town is not my town, I loved being a reporter, we actually left the newsroom and spent most of our time out in the world talking to people. You can actually learn things that way, rather than sit on your widening fanny and declaim on TV.

I am no fan of nostalgia, the old days are rarely better than the new ones, but I can’t really bear the people who sit in studios behind long and garish desks glancing obsessively at their laptops for guidance and ideas, confusing argument with reporting,  ideology for truth, shouting with enlightenment.

They may bring is down yet in the name of saving us from each other. I am in my own world and liking it more all of the time.

-I know that nature and animals are healing, a part of our creation and history. I will never leave the natural world again, or live a life without dogs and donkeys and chickens and cats and deer and bobcats and beautiful trees in the forests.

This world is the Post-Mueller World for me, I can’t live all day in the other, life is just too short for me. I won’t be sucked into it, it will poison my world as well as theirs.

-My politics are what I do, not what I call myself or what others call me, not the labels other people put on me. I am called to share and do good where I can. The Army Of Good is my political party.

I don’t need other people to agree with me, and I don’t hate anyone for thinking differently. If one does believe in God, isn’t that the way he made us?

I see that even the comedians try to get us to laugh at our leaders, that is what passes for  humor now. Comedy was one a respite from real life, not it is real life on speed.

I don’t need the President or Congress for my comedy, I don’t need to laugh at them, I don’t find them funny. W.C. Fields and the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers and Sara Silverman are funny.

I make my own comedy, Maria and I laugh at one another, I laugh at Bud every day, and Fate circling her sheep, and the wily moodiness of the donkey and the sparkle in a cold country stream.

There is life beyond the Mueller World, although you wouldn’t know it from the news. Hate and power and greed are what is important to the people on the news, those things don’t really matter to me.

I’m not going to live in that world. I am a citizen of another place.

We are doing good here and now, on the farm, in the AOG,  doing real work in the real world, helping gifted refugee children get into good schools, helping the elderly be warm and safe and comfortable, and encouraging  despairing creatives when we can.  Don’t get a day job, you’ll never go back. Our new podcast will hopefully be another way of telling our stories to the world.

(Our podcast has been accepted for approval by Itunes, it will be posted there any day now. Here’s a sample.

Podcast. How do we open our podcast? Maria and I work it out.