The world around us is changing, as it does each year. The sun rises later and sets earlier, temperatures fall, flowers fade, and trees drop their leaves. Autumn brings these changes.

This year, as it does every four years, our country is in the thrall of elections. I think the election cycle is worse this time than ever before, at least in my memory. The ugliness of the rhetoric and awfulness of the diatribes against opponents overwhelms the airwaves. In our family we mute the commercials in an effort to ignore the political advertisements. We often resort to putting in a movie or turning to Netflix or a movie channel.

Rarely does the advertisement include anything positive about the candidate, the good things they have done, the proposals they make for the future of our country, how they propose to help the voters. It just isn’t there. How can we take any of them seriously?

I’ve been finishing my (hopefully) final edits on my book, Eve, First Matriarch. As I’ve read through her story once more, I yearn for the quiet days without politics. I dream of a day in the near future when we are once again led by men and women who have our best interests to direct them, who pray for guidance, and who trust us to do the right thing. That day will come once more, though I fear not soon enough.

Perhaps this is the reason apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic books are so popular today. We fear for our future, we feel a change for the worse, we sense our political leaders have everything except our best interest as directions, and we sense the worst for the future of our country and planet. What if it happens? What happens then? It drives our fears and books and movies that are produced.

I believe some of this worst will happen, though I refrain from predicting when that will occur. Perhaps that’s why I read and watch some of the post-apocalyptic stories. However, I believe the ending will be different, the resolution happier than predicted by these stories. I believe in the hope foreseen by Eve and her beloved Adam. All will be well in the end. The great Jehovah’s plan will be completed as envisioned.

Until then, I don’t watch or read political advertisements.