John Pavlovitz, Author at Milwaukee Independent

An Emotional Divide: Grieving for the relationships that will not survive this Presidency

Posted by John Pavlovitz | Aug 23, 2020 |

I’ll never understand it. As long as I live, it will never really make sense to me. Yeah, I’ve read all the research, analyzed all the data, digested a thousand think pieces, and watched countless late night cable TV commentaries over the past four years — and all of them together still don’t add up to this. They don’t explain once rational, otherwise decent, educated people fully taking leave of their senses: people I’ve grown up with, served on mission trips with, families who’ve had my kids over for sleepovers, older relatives I spent decades aspiring to become, ministers...

Tethered to Toxicity: Everything is at stake in the 2020 election

Posted by John Pavlovitz | Aug 20, 2020 |

It is heartbreaking to see someone you love in a toxic relationship: watching them be continually torn down and berated, treated with complete disregard, humiliated publicly over and over again — and knowing that despite how much damage has been inflicted, they will likely stay with their abuser, to their own detriment. There is a unique kind of helplessness when a human being is so blinded by their past hopes about what the other person would become, that they can’t see what they actually are presently; when they are so consumed with the story they’ve told themselves about the...

The purposeful effort to cripple our Postal System is a domestic attack on the Constitution

Posted by John Pavlovitz | Aug 18, 2020 |

Growing up, I was fascinated by the “Dead Letter Office,” the room in the Post Office where undeliverable mail went; letters and packages without decipherable addresses and with no return address. I remember hearing about it and its stranded, homeless contents — and feeling sadness for all the disappointment and frustration it represented: a grandmother’s birthday card, a passionate love letter from a long-distance relationship, last-minute cash to avoid impending eviction, a good little child’s Christmas present from Santa — all lost in transit. I grieved for the interrupted connections because I knew that they represented so many unexpressed...

What Hurts God? A for-profit false prophet

Posted by John Pavlovitz | Aug 9, 2020 |

“A completely deranged Trump claims Joe Biden will ‘hurt God’ if elected president.” – Timothy Burke “He’s following the radical-left agenda: take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment, no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God.” – Donald Trump “Like so many people, my faith has been the bedrock foundation of my life: it’s provided me comfort in moments of loss and tragedy, it’s kept me grounded and humbled in times of triumph and joy. And in this moment of darkness for our country — of pain, of division, and of sickness for so many Americans —...

Presidential Child Abuse: Trump uses extortion on parents in effort to prematurely re-open schools

Posted by John Pavlovitz | Jul 14, 2020 |

The President wants schools open in the Fall and he is threatening to withhold funding to those that refuse, this while several states are seeing record numbers of new COVID-19 cases each day. This is medically irresponsible. It’s partisan politics of the most heinous variety. It’s extortion leveraging the most vulnerable among us. It’s also child abuse. Willfully endangering the welfare of a child is almost universally agreed upon as the greatest of human transgressions, and yet this is the certain crime of an Administration who want to forcefully send millions of children, teachers, administrators, and support staff into...

The Sounds of Fear: Why terrified politicians are trying to silence American voters

Posted by John Pavlovitz | Jul 12, 2020 |

These Republicans are telling you something right now, America. If you listen carefully, you can hear them. With every panicked and quivering move they are clearly testifying. They are confirming how frightened they are right now. There is no other logical conclusion to be reached. There is only one reason they cull down the polling sites for thousands of people, to only one. It’s the same reason they condemn voting by mail — after repeatedly voting by mail. The same reason they continually gerrymander themselves a more favorable playing field. The same reason they oppose paper ballots and absentee...