In the hours after the election, many of the disappointed responded with fits of rage and confusion. While I don’t have the power to reframe the narrative to convince the disheartened that we’re not heading for imminent destruction, we who’ve been biting our tongues for the past four years may have helpful perspective.
Firstly, It’s going to be OK.
Additionally, it would do us well to stop viewing our politicians as either gods or demons. No human has the power to save or destroy us.
If we could pause and reflect together at this juncture, I’m convinced those who’ve been tried and survived can lend a hand to others. Let’s review some of the details from that vantage.
By the end of 2020, a pandemic was raging, cities were burning, and depression was ravaging our citizenry. We faithful found our church doors shuttered, including on Easter, the height of the Christian year. When a vaccination promising to rectify all emerged, instead of confidence, it brought further division and growing distrust.
As the new year came into view, a promise that all would be set aright followed. I, among the doubters, gritted my teeth, sensing the cycle of humanity spiraling quickly downward.
These last years have not been easy for many. We’ve been lied to, threatened, assaulted, and even abandoned. But within that struggle, something beautiful has emerged in my own life.
As I recalled Saint Paul’s reminder that our citizenship is not here but in heaven, I began trusting God in a more decisive way, intentionally deepening my interior life, and taking less stock in leaders with worldly power, expending more energy on those in my immediate line of sight.
Even as darkness loomed, in January 2021, I chose “light” as my guiding word, later borrowing it for my podcast’s tagline: “Don’t lose sight of the light!” And I reminded myself that the world was made by love, out of love, for love.
To that end, I recently had an epiphany: the people on the earth right now are uniquely here at this time with us. Whether friend or foe, we are here together, sharing the same space for just a while. In reflecting on this, gratitude flows, even toward those who see me as an enemy.
I’ve heard it said that the opposite of love is not hate but fear. But “Perfect love casts out fear,” as we read in 1 John 4:18. For those feeling like the sky is falling, that might be a good verse to reflect upon. Turning our thoughts upward, rather than inward, can restore hope.
Some of the disenchanted have stated their commitment to renewed fighting. I’d propose, instead, a determination toward listening, not with a tendency toward pouncing but with an approach proposed by St. Benedict: “Obsculta…et inclina auren cordis tui,” or “Listen…and incline the ear of your heart.”
Our time here together is much too short, and precious. Perhaps we can try, now, to search out one another through the lens of love.
[For the sake of having a repository for my newspaper columns and articles, I reprint them here, with permission, a week after their run date. The preceding ran in The Forum newspaper on Nov. 17, 2024.]
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