A little
over four years ago, I sat on the bed in the middle of a November night watching
numbers climb while my heart fell. It was happening. He was going to win.
In the
days after, I wasn’t filled with outrage, but my spirit sank. It was a
lot to take in. I had already seen enough of him- enough egocentrism and
bullying to know what lie ahead, or at least, the pale foreshadows of it.
I remember
reading Garrison Keillor’s piece in the Washington Post on November 9, 2016. His
prediction for himself and people like him.
We
liberal elitists are now completely in the clear. The government is in
Republican hands. Let them deal with him. Democrats can spend four years
raising heirloom tomatoes, meditating, reading Jane Austen, traveling around
the country, tasting artisan beers, and let the Republicans build the wall and
carry on the trade war with China and deport the undocumented and deal with
opioids, and we Democrats can go for a long , brisk walk and smell the roses.
He had my
number, for sure. I might not self-identify as a “liberal elitist”, but I actually
did all of those things over the past four years- except that I read Harry
Potter instead of Jane Austen. But our tomatoes were quite lovely. He wasn’t
being glib. He goes on to predict the damage that would come, but he knew that
people like me wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Can any amount of
gardening, meditating or travel help us recover from the soul-wounds we’ve
suffered the past four years?
Let me check
my privilege. I am a white heterosexual, Christian female. The limits on my
life are mostly self-imposed. The fears I face are from within and the
suffering I endure is mostly spiritual and emotional. There are billions of
people in this world who have a much harder row to hoe. But, because I am
human, I suffer. Because I am a person with a soul, I grieve.
Some
people say this isn’t a Democrat vs. Republican thing. To be honest, I don’t
really know. I’m a high school science teacher. I know little about politics. I’ve
forgotten a lot of what I learned in civics class, and I rely heavily on my
trusted loved ones to help me understand what’s happening in the government. My parents are Democrats. And my
husband was a Republican when I married him. After years of thinking I was righter
than him, I started to listen. I didn’t always agree, but I started to
understand. So I know a little bit about both sides. I love people on both sides.
Putting
the D and the R in front of what I’m trying to say here, though- it seems too
small. Though, maybe, for some, it does boil down to that, because once I said “liberal
elitist”, ya’ll were out, if you even made it that far.
That quick
exit is one of the reasons I haven’t written about this. In four years- I, who
like to write, who sometimes need to write, haven’t written about this
man and the division he’s helped create. There are a lot of reasons why. Remember
those fears within me? I’m terrified of other people’s words. I’ve been so
scared of other people’s opinions about what I might write that I’ve kept my
words hidden. But it
hasn’t only been fear. Good sense has also kept me quiet. There’s a lot more
that I don’t know than I do know. I try not to write about things that I don’t
know. I’ve learned to sit with it and try to figure it out before putting words
to it. I’ve sat with it for four years. I haven’t figured it out, but I’ve
figured out how I feel about it. So here
you go, whether you like it or not. And you can have at the Facebook comments.
I’m not going to respond.
Some of my
friends told me that they felt hopeful on Wednesday, January 20, 2021. I admit that I
cried when I saw those masked faces walking through the guarded doors. The Bushes,
the Obamas, Mike Pence and then, the winners of the 2020 election. Their arrival
brought on a departure of the tension I’ve held in for four years. But it’s a
little too early for hope for me.
“My hope
is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness,” wrote Edward
Mote in 1834. Those words are so deeply etched into my soul, that, as much as I
love America, I don’t put my hope in it. As many good things that can come from
liberty and justice for all, it isn’t enough. Easy for me to say as a middle
class white lady. Liberty and justice haven’t ever really been taken away from
me, but I’ll take my cues from history, and from the saints throughout the ages
who did suffer but believed that real hope is only found in one place- one
Person. I like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and I love Barack and Michelle Obama.
But I don’t hope in them. I never did. And, to be honest, I’m not sure that
they would really want me to.
My hope
has been, and still is, in Jesus. And that’s where my greatest grief has come
from for four years. Because Jesus has been, and still is, dragged into the
selfish, egotistical, careless, and I’ll just go ahead and say it- crazy musings
of an out-of-control narcissist.
This isn’t
my first rodeo with this, though. There are a lot of narcissists out there
abusing Jesus and his people. They’re in charge of churches, families, non-profits and missions organizations. But they’ve never been president
before. And that’s where, in my opinion, Donald Trump has truly damaged the soul of America.
For many people,
Trump represents something morally reprehensible, something foul that has
brought reckless damage to the soul of our nation. Some of those people believe,
like me, that their hope is built on nothing less than Jesus. Some of them do
not believe in Jesus. How we define the soul of America is different for
different Americans. I love those Americans, and I’m certain that nothing could
be more important from me in this hour than to agree that our soul does,
indeed, need time to heal, however we define it. Now is not the time for me to
talk about my beliefs about the eternal soul. That’s another conversation for
another day.
Now is the
time for me to say, if only to myself, that though God’s mercy falls on Donald
Trump like sweetest rain this morning, just like it falls on me- that he is not
a representation of the Jesus on whom I’ve built my hope. But after four years
of his boasts and his lies, some people still believe that he is. I have to
write down, out of love, and out of the hope that's etched so deeply into my soul- that he
is not.
Donald Trump
loves himself. In four years, that’s all I’ve seen him do. He doesn’t love God
or America. He doesn’t love Republicans, and he hates liberal elitists and
their tomatoes. But Jesus does not. Jesus loves me. He loves me, exactly as I
am, exactly where I am, for exactly who I am. This doesn’t mean I’m
perfect. It doesn’t mean that I’m not aware of my sinfulness. But it does
mean that I’m awake to the reality that I live in a country, in
a time and in a Church in which I need to preach that Gospel to myself and the people I love. Because we live in a country, in a time and in a Church, when many
followers of Jesus have forgotten. Instead, they've replaced that truth with a belief that says you have to
share a conservative value system, hate liberals, vote against certain policies and follow this (now former) President to be counted a "true" follower of Jesus.
I reject that. And, though it's taken me four years- I’m writing it down. I won’t listen to you, Christian Trump-supporters. I can't. Because your message is damaging my soul and the soul of this country. But I’m not going to hate you. I’m not going to view you as my enemy or “the problem" with everything in our society. I’m not going to pray pitying prayers so filled with condescension that they would turn our God’s stomach, rather than his ear. I’m just going to remind myself, each and every day, that my hope is built on someone who loves me, and because of that love, he has never asked and never will ask that I allow myself and my brothers and sisters to be abused by a narcissist bully. And I'll put my hope in this- that God is true and that God is love and that his name will come through this in the end, pure and holy and still eager to have mercy on even you and even me.
God bless me.
God bless you. And God bless America.
photo credit The Kansas City Star
