The troubles in the country have, from the first, deepened my sense of compassion and empathy. As a child brought up among people who owed their lives – and mine – to America, and to the country’s willingness to accept people in distress who risked their lives to reach our country, I am sad and sorry.

The cruelty surging in America has been good for me in many ways, if disastrous and frightening for so many others. It sparked the Army of Good and inspired me to be a better human and try to do as much good as possible before my life ended, as all of ours will.

When I’m angry or upset, as I was when I heard of the Supreme Court’s unfathomably cruel and inhumane ruling yesterday, I turn away from fear and anger and make sure to do some good. I have several ideas about that for me today.

I have learned to see sorrow, hate, and disappointment as an awful but valuable gift, a chance for me to be a better human being. There are lots of opportunities.

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I need to take some time to think about – even pray – for the half million people from Haiti who escaped death, hunger, and poverty by coming to the land of the free for an opportunity to live a better life. From what I see and hear, many have been successful here, living in safety, free of hunger, and working in nursing homes, construction, agriculture, and many other institutions in need of help and workers.

Very few of them committed a crime or broke any laws while here; they just got down to working hard and sleeping easily. I can’t imagine what the nursing homes will do now for help; Haitians filled so many holes in those institutions.

They and their children must now live in fear – children too – of returning to a hellishly crippled nation, and return to lives of hunger, fear, and violence.

How can I deal with this? How can any person of faith or heart not feel the awful pain and cruelty of what the Supreme Court did? I don’t know if the decision was racist or not, at the very least it is inhuman.

I meditate, have begun praying, and doing good when I can. It helps. Hate and anger do not, it rarely does. Neither does fear.

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Did those honest and hard-working people not deserve a country that keeps its promise, and remains humane and kind, as well as wealthy and bloodthirsty? Do their children deserve to be taken back to a land with little hope or promise?

A heartless court, it turns out, is no better than a heartless dictator.

This will test me, but it won’t do me in or move me to trigger hate and fury. I hope I’m better than that and that my country is struggling to be better than that. As for me, I have three good ideas today, and I’ll get to work on them and hope others can do the same. I will also pray for those Haitian people who came here in hope and faith.

I will think of them and also of the many people in America who couldn’t get here in time or who were turned away and denied admission to die in concentration camps in the cruelest way.

I pray that America comes to its senses. I pray these people who trust America can survive and rebuild their lives once again.