Two topics concerning me: 1.Trump and the Inaugural Church Service at Washington National Cathedral and 2, More important than D. C. statehood to me................

1. I know the immediate reaction of some to the tradition of a prayer service on the day after the inaugural might well be,"Doesn't it violate the separation of church and state?" But it is just one of a number of those well-established traditions in this field such as the fact that there's a chaplain in the Congress who provides prayers every day. And so I was gratified that the tradition lives on and that Trump would be away from his tweeting long enough participate in a service that might provide divine assistance. Little did I realize that he was expanding the authority of the executive branch of government to the church. Consider this quote from The Washington Post:

According to the Right Rev. Marianne Budde, Bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Washington, “Trump asked that there be no preaching during the interfaith service." 

Rather than attributing this to his tendency to follow the historic action as certain dictators I'm wondering if his patience is so limited that he is unable to sit for this length of time or if he is unable to have his tweeting curtailed for this long a period.

2.  More important to me than statehood for the District of Columbia is the loss of freedoms we have as individual citizens to make basic decisions effecting our lives. The recent election has only underscored how increasingly difficult it will be for District statehood to gain any traction.   Yet the front page of The Washington Post on Thursday, January 19 discloses the enormity of our continued loss of ability to control our lives as individual citizens. Even more important to me than "taxation without representation" is the loss of my ability to control the basic and essential aspect of my life.  The article speaks of rolling back gun control laws and the availability of local tax dollars for abortions .And for me personally at 91 would be be the denial of my right to die with dignity.  I'm personally offended by the affront of someone like "United States Representative Jason Chaffetz (R – Utah) vowed last week to use his perch atop the House Oversight Committee to roll back the law making the District the seventh jurisdiction to allow terminally ill patients to legally in their lives."

Who is he to tell me how to live or die?  Just because I live in the District!  I realize and respect the great effort and strong feeling of many who have sought statehood for the District. It's time, however to realize it's politically (and to some degree, in my mind, logically) impractical and impossible. Is not perhaps a new strategy and/or legal venues possible for achieving basic human dignity and rights?

A good place to work to make America truly great would be to give the people of the District an opportunity and resources to work with the president and Congress to make it the "Shining City on The Hill" it has the promise and potential to be!