In some ways, it seems like this summer has flown by. In others, it seems like it has lasted forever. Or maybe that’s just me. How has it been for you?

I substitute teach at a year-round school. For the first time ever, I taught the last day of the 2024-25 school year and the first day of the 2025-26 school year. There was only a few days over the July 4 holiday between the two years. So I’ve been teaching a lot over the summer. Plus, I’ve been working a lot on a project I hope to be ready to announce soon. This is to say I’ve been spending more time focused on working than vacationing this summer.

And then there is the national and international news. Israel continues to attack Gaza while refusing to allow aid organizations to come in to serve the weak and the dying. Every week we see pictures of children starving, but things don’t change. Russia follows a coveted meeting with President Trump to discuss peace in Ukraine by upping its military attacks. Congress passed a bill that takes a trillion dollars away from social programs serving the poor and the working class to give a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the wealthy. The people Trump has put in charge of federal offices are demonstrating how unqualified they are for those jobs. Immigrants are being sent to “prisons” that are really concentration camps without due process. The Trump administration ignores both the US Constitution and the court rulings it doesn’t like. There are armed military occupying my hometown of Washington DC. And that is just a brief summary.

Plus, I attended four funerals over the summer.

In short, while I’ve had many things to be grateful for, this hasn’t been my most festive summer.

I’m ending it like I started it…by going to a mass protest to express my dissatisfaction with most of our current federal policies. Since April, I’ve protested in “Hands Off” (fill in the blank), “No Kings,” two different “Good Trouble (in honor of John Lewis),” and a couple of other organized pop-up protests. So Labor Day will be the “Workers Over Billionaires.” The day after that, I’m going to the “Free Our Cities” protest.

In between, I’m going to my local farmers market Saturday morning, and supporting our spiritual community outreach by bringing breakfast items to support residents and their families at a local hospice facility on Sunday morning.

Still, I’ll have a special meal for Labor Day Monday evening, as I usually do on all holidays.

If you would also like to actually support labor instead of spending the entire day eating or drinking or swimming or whatever (I love those, but it’s possible to do both), find a protest close to you at: https://www.fiftyfifty.one.

However you choose to spend it, Happy Labor Day Everyone!