On the evening of Friday, January 2, 2026, my wife and I visited the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.
Our purpose for this trip was to view the Dominion Energy GardenFest of Lights.
This annual trek didn’t disappoint.
No matter where our footsteps took us, we like children were captured by the colorful and creative displays of lights.
If you are a follower or occasional reader of my blog, Might Be Baloney, you know by now that I’m a pretty good whiner.
I try to whine for what I believe to be good reasons. I’ll let you figure out if the whines are on target.
Rightly or wrongly, I sometimes send a Letter To The Editor to newspapers across America. Quite often, my letters are rejected.
Though I’m disappointed from the rejections, I also try to see these rejections as an opportunity to learn. And no matter if a letter is accepted or rejected, our voices need to be heard.
I recently sent letters to the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post.
I’m sharing these letters with you today.
As you will see, the frame of both letters is identical.
The letters were changed to meet word count requirements. All newspapers have word count requirements for a Letter To The Editor. Those word counts can range from 150 to 400.
Either way, the point in both letters is this— if we truly want to change our world, we must figure out how to love.
That love must be more than a pretty sign.
I leave you with both letters, and a hope and prayer that 2026 will be a gentle year for you and your loved ones.
Be safe, love, Bill Pike
Sent to the Chicago Tribune December 17, 2025
In the song “The Christmas Waltz” written by Sammy Kahn and Jule Styne is this lyric: “It’s that time of year when the world falls in love.”
While that optimism might be true for individuals who find the right person to fall in love with, it appears to me that our world is incapable of loving one another.
Where is our love for each other in these headlines:
Stockton, California at a birthday party, four people shot, killed, three of those were children, and thirteen injured.
In Palmyra, Syria, two U.S. military personnel and a civilian working as an interpreter were ambushed, killed, three others injured.
At Brown University in Rhode Island, two killed and nine injured at a shooting.
Sydney, Australia at Bondi Beach at least fifteen killed at a Hanukkah gathering.
Commenting after the attack on the U.S. military personnel in Syria, President Trump stated there will be:
“a very serious retaliation.”
As an imperfect American who loves my country, but who doesn’t always understand my country, I want to know when are we going to take “a very serious retaliation” against ourselves.
By retaliation, I mean when will we fully commit to unraveling our mental illness and our dependency for solving any personal problem by shooting people.
It is disgraceful that we are politically unwilling to find the middle ground and backbone to discover a practical solution.
Why do we constantly fail to see what we are doing to ourselves?
Isn’t the carnage in schools, houses of worship, shopping centers, and other public settings enough?
How many more lives must we lose in America and other countries to violence from firearms?
Will our disrespect of our hard fought and blood stained freedoms bring America to our demise?
No matter the magnificence of America’s accomplishments, those achievements mean nothing if we can’t resolve the on-going erosion of our human infrastructure.
That erosion has emptied our hearts of compassion and courage.
Incivility, selfishness, division, and disregard for the truth have refilled our hearts.
What kind of America have we become to allow our leaders and ourselves to showcase such contempt?
Blink, and December 2026 arrives.
In that blink, we must embrace this wisdom from Martin Luther King, Jr. : “I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
If we hope to change our headlines, we must love.
Sent to the Washington Post December 17, 2025
As reported by the Washington Post, Stockton, California, Palmyra, Syria, Brown University, and Sydney, Australia have unfortunately joined an elite club—communities where mass shooting have occurred.
This time of year, holiday songs like the “Christmas Waltz” suggest—“it’s that time of year when the world falls in love.”
In those heartbreaking headlines, no world is falling in love.
After the attack on U.S. military personnel in Syria, President Trump stated there will be:
“a very serious retaliation.”
As an imperfect American who loves my country, I want to know are we ever going to take “a very serious retaliation” against ourselves?
By retaliation, I mean unraveling the source of our mental illness to understand our dependency to solve personal problems by shooting people.
It is a disgrace that our political backbones are unwilling to work cooperatively to solve this sickness.
Why do we constantly fail to see our shortcomings?
Isn’t the slaughter in schools, houses of worship, shopping centers, and other public settings enough?
How many more lives must we lose to firearms?
Our earned freedoms were hard fought and blood stained. Will our disrespect of these rights be America’s demise?
No matter the magnificence of America’s accomplishments, those achievements mean nothing if we can’t resolve the on-going erosion of our human infrastructure.
That erosion has emptied our hearts of compassion.
Incivility, selfishness, division, and disregard for the truth have refilled those hearts.
What kind of America have we become to allow our leaders and ourselves to showcase such contempt?
Blink, and December 2026 arrives.
In that blink, we must act upon this wisdom from Martin Luther King, Jr. : “I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
Any hope to change those headlines means we must learn to love.
might be baloney 
Hi Bill! Happy new year!
I agree with your sentiment. After all, the two greatest commandments ever given hinge on that very emotion of which you speak: love.
Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
This is straightforward. I think most know what to do; I think they simply don’t know how. We all must continue to pray for discerning hearts, and enlightenment.
Blessings to you, and the ‘commander supreme’ in this new year!
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Thanks Chris, you are correct about not knowing what to do. All the best in 2026, be safe, Bill
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