Commenting about the election of a priest once known as Father Bob on Chicago’s South Side and now as new Pope Leo XIV, a 21-year-old American college student in Rome told an NPR news reporter that the new Pope looks “like someone who’s gonna crush it.” Hardly a theological insight. It is one, though, that I daresay Pope Francis would have heartily laughed at in full agreement.

The opening weeks of the second Trump administration have roiled the waters of American society in unprecedented ways. Trump’s deployment of his presidential power through hundreds of Executive Orders and other administrative actions have constituted not a faithful execution of the laws of the United States, but an abrupt departure from sound constitutional order.

The central meaning of “Crawling Back to You,” is found in the two stanzas that tell a story. It describes Tom’s excessive anxiety and worry. A partner keeps assuring him that he’s OK and that he need not be so anxious. Things will turn out fine. “Things will work out for you,” the partner says. “I will be there every step of the way to love and support you.”

But the central question in the Gospel of Mark is: who is Jesus? Mark, the gospel writer, tells the story of Jesus in a way that invites the reader to decide for themselves who Jesus really is. The Confession of Peter reveals one aspect of Jesus’ identity as Messiah, but there’s still more to learn about him.

What can we learn from the past to understand the present and the time to come? Do we really have a crisis in our Democracy? Has this happened before? Are we facing a new kind of American government that places governing control in the hands of a Dictator or King? Are we threatened by any change in the relationship of men to women, or to white Anglo-Saxon males by new foreign groups that are growing in our land?

The people of God tend to complain even when things are good. They seem to have a need to complain.  And when they do, they are not able to appreciate what they already have. They are unable to see the blessings God already has poured out on them.