Things I'm Struggling to Believe After the Election
Not only do the times change, the times change us.
Every day we are gradually altered by the world; by what we see or experience, by the people we cross paths with, by the pain and goodness we bear witness to.
We are the ever-changing sum total of the moments we log here on the planet, always slightly shifting, forever in transition, never quite finished.
And because of this, invariably we are going to find ourselves at times disagreeing with our former selves, no longer certain of things we believed in our core to be unquestionably true.
Over recent weeks, I've realized how many of those sacred givens are now up for debate in my heart and how much grieving this reality has yielded. Maybe you’re in the same place of uncertainty and instability.
There are so many former accepted principles I’m now struggling to believe:
All people are basically good.
For as long as I can remember, this truth has been my fundamental operating system: that once you dig through the layers of fear, grief, and damage piled upon them by time and circumstance—that every human being is essentially decent and loving, that they are all aspiring to goodness. And while I haven't completely jettisoned that belief yet, I have to confess that in recent years I've encountered far too many people who seem fully determined to conceal their goodness; who seem driven to be hurtful, who appear devoid of empathy, who from the outside look filled with bitterness. Holding on to the conviction that every human being is inherently humane, is more difficult now than it's ever been.
Faith makes people better.
As a person of faith for most of my life and a pastor for nearly half of it, I always wanted to believe that the pursuit of God was a help to humanity; that religion can be a soothing balm to a hurting world, that at its best it yields people who have more compassion, decency, and tenderness than they would have had otherwise. I used to be certain of this and I no longer am. I can't avoid the persistent cruelty manufactured by people claiming to love and speak for God—many of the worst of which come from my Christian tradition. Right now, I find myself trying to defend a faith while simultaneously protecting so many who are terribly wounded by it. I am trying to point people to God who have been brutally assaulted by professed people of that God—and it's not something that I am OK with.
America is beautifully different.
Though I never grew up with the fierce nationalistic fervor or strident exceptionalism of many of my homeland, I always believed that my country was different; that it was marked by something singularly wonderful which separated it from every other place on the planet. It may have been a largely imagined truth or uninformed bias, but I always trusted that my country was aspiring to incarnate the ideals of personal liberty and collective liberation. Watching what we've devolved to over the past decade, and seeing what inexplicably unfolded here in November and the staggering ugliness that it has produced since—has all but shattered the myth of my childhood that America was a beacon of hope for the world, and this grieves me greatly. I now feel decidedly homeless here.
The table is big enough.
Maybe it was privilege-induced blindness, but until recently, I was certain we were becoming a people who together embraced the full breadth of humanity. I'd started to believe that the rich diversity of pigmentation, religion, sexual orientation, and gender was being celebrated more than it was being assailed. Until recently, I would have said that we were pushing hard toward equality, but right now it seems as though people are more committed than ever to seeing difference as a barrier—or worse, as justification for exclusion and eradication. These days have unearthed an ugliness that may have always been there, but that doesn't make it any less horrifying to witness or disheartening to accept. Maybe the table is big enough but some will never desire to gather there.
The system will protect us.
Growing up, my understanding of this country was that our forebears had prepared for every possible internal and external threat: that the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the organization of our government made the subverting of Democracy all but impossible. That belief has been obliterated watching one vile human being with no moral character and a complicit political party, upend, disregard, or destroy every check, balance, safeguard, and barrier that previously protected the people. There now seems to be very little in the architecture of our systems that is holding, and that is a terrifying reality to accept.
Love is all you need.
This idea has always been far greater than a pop song to me, the steady refrain of my heart as I've walked through the world: that love does win, that it will conquer all, that it is the antidote to all that afflicts us. I've lived believing that loving hateful people is the only hope you have of reaching them. Maybe I haven't fully given up this conviction but it is certainly being strongly challenged and undoubtedly renovated. Yes you do need love, but you need other things as an expression of that love: activism that doesn't shrink back in the face of opposition, compassion that is willing to suffer on behalf of another, perseverance that will insist on justice when it is resisted. Maybe I still believe love is all you need, I just define love differently than I used to.
Life will always be about the alteration that we undergo as we amass time and experience here. Some days, we will rejoice with what these things confirm for us, other days we will grieve what we have lost. Maybe it is the sheer volume of all that seems to be changing in these days but it certainly appears as though there is far more reason for mourning than for dancing. For many of us, the list of what we are certain of seems frighteningly short right now.
I imagine the greatest comfort in destabilizing times like these is realizing that the story isn't over yet; that this day offers the possibility to be again be shown the goodness of Humanity and to be proven wrong for ever doubting it. Maybe today will provide us with counterintuitive, hope-inducing evidence that surprises us and confirms our earlier suspicions, giving us back some of the givens we’d let go of.
And this day provides us the precise space and time for us to become the kind of people we feel the world needs. Perhaps we can be for those who also doubt it, reason to believe that good people still inhabit this place.
What are you struggling to keep believing now?
As a long time trauma therapist, I have known far too much of the pain and suffering that people, especially children, experience. The ugliness that occurs in families is my daily work. However, like you, I still clung to the very beliefs you write about in todays' letter. The loss by Harris may have broken me. I know that many people are not good at heart, and have known it for decades, but now I know the number is far greater than I ever imagined. I comforted myself knowing that sociopaths make up only about 4% of the population. Now I realize you don't have to be a sociopath to create evil in this world. Ignorance is just as effective, as is jealousy, fear of losing one's place in the social order, and bitter anger. I too believed our constitution and rule of law would protect us. I no longer believe that. Neither does Joe Biden, hence his pardoning of his son, knowing that evil people would continue to come after him. My faith is sorely tested. My desire to attend church is at an all time low. Religion now seems to me to be a cult, indoctrinating us into misogyny, black and white thinking, hatred of the other, and, frankly, white power. I still believe Jesus taught an entirely different message, but I can no longer trust fellow Christians to believe in that Jesus. Thank you for sharing your grief with us, as I imagine most of your readers are grieving the same issues. This letter expressed it perfectly. I'll continue to read you, as a reminder that there are still good people in the world.
A few years ago a therapist told me that we don’t all share the same moral code. I am still stunned by this statement even though I see evidence of it daily. I could have gladly gone my entire life without knowing this. I wish it was not true. My mind cannot undo what was and still is my core belief in a universal standard of good and evil.
Thank you for this column. At least I know that others share and struggle with this dilemma.