Sanity and wisdom are thin on the ground in American public life right now, which is nothing to laugh about. However, Pious Petunia returns today to offer a tiny dose of snark and good sense, perhaps as a defiant inoculation against lunacy. (Miss P, for the record, still believes in vaccination protocols.)

Dear Pious Petunia: Could the US really make Canada the 51^st state?

Miss P: Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Soon Tim Horton’s franchises would pop up across the continent, spreading donut-and-coffee-inflected good cheer. The maple syrup trade would flow freely across the former border. Plaid flannel would roar into fashion for everything from shirts to socks to sailboat sails and theater curtains. Perhaps we could transition the entire US police force onto horseback, a whole new squadron of noble Canadian Mounties. Think of the job creation for horse groomers and farriers!

And of course, adding some 20 million Canadian voters to the US would mean millions more Democratic voters. The “state” of Canada alone would need about 10,000 Congressional representatives in the US House. So politically, this is a great idea if you want a lot more Democrats.

Come to think of it, Miss P proposes instead that Canada take over the US. All the US states could become nice Canadian provinces, and we could simply sweep away our current US federal government. Done! All the illegally fired US civil servants and government scientists could be re-hired by the new United States of Canada. We would finally get health care for all. We would learn to pronounce our o’s differently. Loons could fly back and forth across the 49^th parallel without fear. Canada geese could be repatriated after generations of exile in the US, their fuzzy goslings granted birthright citizenship right out of the egg.

Hmmm. The more Miss P thinks about this, the more appealing this seems.

But to answer your original question: no.  

Dear Miss P: What on earth is going on with the US federal government?

Miss P: Well now, that’s a tough question. So Miss P will speak to you in parables.

There once was a family who lived in relatively pleasant suburbia. The parents had two children, a teenage girl and a younger teenage boy. They spoiled the teenage boy rotten, buying him two Alfa Romeos and a yacht of his very own, where he loved to party on the weekends with his buddies. Meanwhile, they neglected the girl and told her constantly that their neglect was all her fault.

Obviously, this arrangement was straining the parents’ finances, but they continued to put a good face on it, because they adored their boy. They assumed that if he was happy, everyone was happy.

One day, the boy decided he wanted more. He wanted access to all the parents’ bank accounts and credit cards, not just the super-diamond-platinum American Express they had already provided him. So he told his parents that he would go through all their finances and find ways to save money, so he could keep his Alfa Romeo and his yacht and maybe even buy a collection of antique cars. “After all, I’m supporting the luxury car-and-yacht industry!” he argued.

The parents, who had muddled ideas about most things, including family budgets, agreed. So the boy took over all the finances, transferring all the accounts into his name, cancelling home utilities, defaulting on the mortgage, basically eliminating anything that didn’t benefit him personally. He even cut down all the trees in the yard and sold them for lumber. He was especially vicious with his sister. He accused her of secretly writing checks on Mom and Dad’s account (which she was not doing). He made sure to throw out all the groceries she liked from the fridge. He cancelled her prescriptions and threw out her meds—which she needed to live because she had a chronic disease. He removed the blankets from her bed. “You can make do with just a sheet,” he assured her. He went through her bathroom: “Why do you have shampoo and conditioner?” he scoffed. “How wasteful!”

When he was finished with his raid, the sister sat alone in her bare room. Mom and Dad didn’t seem to care. “How great that our darling son is saving us money!” they cooed. “Now we can spoil him even more!”

The next day, the son took off in his Alfa Romeo for another party with the boys on the yacht. Meanwhile, the creditors came to seize the house and the cops came to imprison the daughter, because the son had told the police any number of lies about how guilty she was of pretty much everything. Mom and Dad were left on the street, penniless and stunned.

Now, what do you think of the parents who let this happen?

Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

Dear Miss P: I have a college-age child, and I’ve been telling her to major in STEM fields because that’s how you get a job and health care benefits and a happy life in a capitalistic society. But now, apparently, science is … bad? Now we fire scientists and don’t believe their work is real? I don’t get it. Should my daughter now major in English?

Miss P: Yes. Your daughter should major in English. That is always a good idea.

However, Miss P does understand your confusion. For the past 400 years, modern science has been advancing, bringing us things like antibiotics, air travel, central heating and cooling, brain surgery, cancer treatments, fossil fuel energy, vaccines, the air fryer, and advanced toothpaste-tube technology.

Now, some people are convinced that science is inconvenient. Because science (atmospheric physics, in particular) also tells us that burning fossil fuels causes climate change. Biology and chemistry tell us that pesticides, herbicides, and plastics are poisoning the planet and entering our very bodies, creating health problems we are only beginning to understand. Knowing all this is inconvenient for people who make mountains of money off of fossil fuels, plastics, and agricultural chemicals.

So these people want to pretend that science is unreliable, more contested than it is, or even nefariously full of freeloaders and conspirators, greedy for those sweet, sweet government grants. The goal of this pretending is to confuse the public and keep making those mountains of sweet, sweet money (including through massive government subsidies and contracts).

So what does all this mean for your daughter and her college career? Miss P acknowledges that the world does indeed need many more STEM majors, and if your daughter has the knack and the desire for any of those fields, she should go for it. The rest of the world (well, generally speaking) continues to understand that the STEM fields are powerful tools for observation and innovation, and we need them to work toward public health and the well-being of people and planet. Your daughter can join the ranks of millions of science and engineering folk who do their work with integrity and commitment to the truth.

If she chooses that option, though, she could still double major in English.     

Dear Miss P: Lent is coming, but I don’t even know how to pray these days. Do you have advice for Lenten prayers?

Miss P: Good prayer requires concentration, and who can concentrate on anything right now except chewing one’s nails and wringing one’s hands and glancing at the news through one’s fingers with squinty eyes and calling one’s congressional reps daily? So Miss P sympathizes with your plea.

Perhaps now is a good time for wordless prayers. Romans 8:26, after all, promises us the Spirit’s sighs too deep for words. How about wordless prayers offered while walking in the woods or along the shore or along desert trails? Sometimes the “peace of wild things” can pass all understanding.

If you’re feeling salty and angry and afraid—as one does these days—the Bible offers helpful prayer suggestions in the Psalms. How about this from Psalm 58:

Do you rulers indeed speak justly?
Do you judge uprightly among men?
No, in your heart you devise injustice,
and your hands mete out violence on the earth.

Or this from Psalm 52:

Why do you boast of evil, you mighty man?
Why do you boast all day long, you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?
Your tongue plots destruction; it is like a sharpened razor,
you who practice deceit.
You love evil rather than good,
falsehood rather than speaking the truth.

Or this from Psalm 64:

Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked,
from that noisy crowd of evildoers,
who sharpen their tongues like swords
and aim their words like deadly arrows.

Evidently, those who seek God have long had to deal with powerful people who gleefully tell lies and destroy the weak. Miss P is not entirely sure if that observation proves comforting or horrifying. But at least we have words from scripture to talk about it.

However angry and salty these psalms begin, they also try to reassure us that God laughs at the wicked and eventually powerful wicked leaders will be de-fanged (Psalm 58:6) so that the meek will inherit the land. Of course, while we’re waiting for the de-fanging–and working for it–suffering abounds. So Miss P understands if one is struggling to believe that such promises of rescue are true, since current events offer only meager evidence, at least in the 50 future provinces of the future United States of Canada.

So another word of wisdom about prayer might be this: do it in community with people of good will, good faith, and good hope. Hold each other up, tell the truth, preach the gospel, hold out the vision of shalom for all, and try to trust. Psalm 37:5-6.