This week, I am mourning for the United States of America.

It isn't the first time I've done it, and it certainly won't be the last.

I am mourning for the state of our country, a state where I cannot choose which ought to be expressed—mere sadness or fierce indignation—and how.

I mourn for the country so divided that political parties dissolve friendships, and those with opposing views cannot talk about one another without egregious, exaggerated insults.

I mourn for the country of people are so good at critiquing problems and those actually trying to solve it, but whom a hill of dung covered in flies and maggots is more useful and beneficial for fixing issues than they are.

I mourn for the country in so much turmoil that riots plague the streets of some places because that is the only way some people feel they can be heard.

I mourn for the country that has allowed its black men and women to drive, walk, laugh, and live in fear because its prejudice is more important than their rights, wellbeing, and lives. I mourn for the people who do not see that this is a systemic issue and refuse to listen to the overwhelming experience and statistics of others telling them that, by the stripes of our flag and their suffering, it is!

I mourn for the country that spirals its different conversations into silence with ad hominem attacks and straw men, while ignoring the dignity, humanity, and intellect of those on different sides engaging in them.

I mourn for the country that allows its women to live in fear and silence, gives little jail time to rapists and no justice to rape victims, and perpetuates rape culture.

I mourn for the country that has committed genocide against the Native population for centuries and oppressed them for even longer. I mourn for the indigenous people who were forced to go to schools where they would be abused and raped just because the white man said so. I mourn for the country that even now thinks its unlimited access to oil is more important than the quality of these people's water and lives.

I mourn for the country that destroys its members of different socioeconomic classes and then turns each of those classes against the other while it continues to profit.

I mourn for the country who kills its children and for generations who lose 1 million of their brothers and sisters each year at the hands of abortion. I mourn for the nation who defends the "right" for this murder to be legal. I mourn for the people who no longer question if these unborn children are indeed alive, because they know that they are, but instead turn to arguments about "personal autonomy" to debate when those lives actually matter to the rest of us. I mourn that we have killed five times as many people as Hitler this way, making our statistics not only comparable, but extremely in our disfavor. I mourn for the Church more concerned with if it should use the oh-so-extremely-important organ or an electric guitar in worship, but, like self-righteous and irreverent Pharisees, refuse to lift a pinky for innocent children made in the Imago Dei, or the people who think they have no other option but to kill their babies in order to survive.

I mourn for the country that debates to elect one ethically destitute person for President over the other and still proudly proclaims that sometimes we must sacrifice and choose the lesser of two evils, even though doing so has brought it two utterly repugnant main candidates. I mourn for the supporters who neglect either federal crimes and blatant corruption, or hatred, sexism, racism, and fundamentally unstable plans.

I mourn for the country who does not dare to put hope in a third party and creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that guarantees either a Democrat or Republican in office.

I mourn for the country that sees its salvation politics rather than God.

I mourn for the country whose Church is more concerned with whether or not a certain role belongs to them or the government, that they by in large cease to care about fulfilling those roles—like filling the bellies of those who starve and caring for those no one else will care for—and kill the people in them.

I mourn for the country that deserves the judgment and abandonment of God, and every evil that comes its way, and yet I cry for mercy.