This is the hardest post I’ve written in a long time, as I simply have no idea how to make sense of the news today. I am utterly stunned by the election results.
And I know that you often turn to me to help make sense of things.
I’ve got nothing.
Not just because it’s too early for analysis… because data analysis won’t change the results. There is something fundamentally wrong with what’s happening, like we are in a sci-fi universe that got mangled by aliens or magic or who knows what.
And this morning, I’ve got nothing.
Later today - like many of you who are religious professionals - I’ll have to pull it together for a vigil of some sort. And in the next day or so we will have to figure out what worship will look like this weekend. And then we’ll have to figure out what the work will be and where hope will emerge.
But right now, it’s okay for all of us to cry, and keen, and wail, and rend our garments, and hide from the world, and stress eat, and hug our pets and families, and hide under the covers.
And through it all, know you are loved, and seen, and beloved, and somehow we’ll figure it out.
Leaving you with Spencer LaJoye’s “Ploughshare Prayer.”
Amen.
Why were we so blind or so isolated from the people that voted differently from us? Do we live such segregated lives that our view of reality is incomplete?
My plan is to do more locally to address equity & justice, and to have that be a form of healing. I will try to do a better job of deep listening to my neighbors.
I will not give up. I will try to work smarter.
It is better to know what we are dealing with rather than be in the dark behind rose-colored glasses. I know this is an unwelcome opinion, but here it is anyway. MAGA is the bursting of an abscess that was building for years in the small towns and countryside. People of similar backgrounds and interests were communicating mainly with each other and ultimately hearing their views amplified on faux nuze and populist podcasts. We have to find a non-threatening way to illuminate for them the consequences of their choices. I work on that every day on Facebook, posting for family and friends who believe that their lives are not as good as they could be in spite of owning land and homes and recreational vehicles and horses and boats.