WLSU: The Days After

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Well, this is the last blog I will publish before the election. I am aware that nothing I could say at this point would sway your vote one way or the other. I think most of you who know me and have read my writing have your own guesses about how I will vote. And I don’t pretend that anything I’ve put out there has had much of an influence on your vote. So I will not be using this platform to tell you for whom you should vote, or even to tell you to vote at all.

But I am thinking a lot about November 5^th. I believe it is the most consequential election of my lifetime so far. I care deeply about what happens. And also, beyond casting my vote, I have no control over the outcome.

What I also believe is that there will be a November 6^th. And a November 7^th. And hopefully many days after that. And I believe that, regardless of the outcome of the election, we will still all belong to each other. And we have some work to do in order to act like that’s true.

A few years ago, during a visit to New Orleans, I spent some time at the World War II Museum. There is a whole room dedicated to the events between World Wars I and II. That room is revelatory. Many of you are history buffs and know what I’m about to say already, but I’m a dilettante. I did not understand until that day in that room that World War II wasn’t an isolated event. It was, in fact, a direct result – and in some ways a continuation - of World War I. And of course World War I was itself part of a larger continuum.

When we discuss these events, we like to pinpoint the moment something began – when a first shot was fired, or when a formal declaration was made. We are attracted to tidy stories with discreet chapters that have clear beginnings, middles, and ends. But that is not how we actually experience life. Our histories, both personal and shared, are composed of clusters of moments – some of them obviously significant, others less so. This election is an obviously significant moment, but it is not isolated: It is utterly connected to so much that has come before and so much that will be.

Likewise, our country’s own Civil War, while it had specific start dates and end dates, did not emerge from out of the ether, and it was not over when it ended. I hear talk of Civil War again. It’s not just idle chatter, and not just in the last few weeks. These are serious conversations about a literal Civil War, which I have heard over the last several years. Some people speak as if it is inevitable.

The natural question is how do we avoid it.

I sit here wondering if it has already begun. I’m not saying that to be shocking. So much of our language and posturing towards groups within our own country is violent and dehumanizing. We are already speaking in terms of trashing whole states, calling large groups of people subhuman, reducing our neighbor to one dimension. Even the decision to call a state red or blue flattens out the diversity of thought, belief, and experience that exists within it. Our classifications allow us to judge and dehumanize large swaths of people – and that mass dehumanization is such an important part of war.

If our country were actually to fall into a Civil War in the days to come, historians would eventually designate a start date, but those of us who are living now would know that the destruction has already begun.

And this is why I want us thinking about November 6^th and 7^th and 8^th. Regardless of what happens, on Tuesday, we have an immense amount of work to do in order to move forward together.

This is not a plea for forced civility, or a sweeping under the rug of legitimate concerns and grievances. This union is imperfect. We have genuine differences, many of them major. I continue to believe that our common humanity is stronger than that which divides us.

What’s more, I believe that the primary work of the Christian is to recognize the dignity of every human being – to humanize everyone. Because we believe every single human being is loved by God – that everyone of us is made in the image of God. When we humanize them we do the work of remembering and insisting on their belovedness and their belonging. This does not just transform them: It transforms us.

This work of healing transformation is also not an isolated event. We will not be able to pinpoint the moment when the tide is turned toward reconciliation. It too may already be at work in the midst of our division.

I know I’ve told this story before, but I think about it all the time: Jesus is said to have fed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish. Well the storyteller says Jesus fed 5,000 men not counting women and children, so really Jesus fed 10-12,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish.

When does the miracle occur? It is not said that when Jesus blesses the food it immediately multiplies. There is no discernible moment - but when we look back on that day, we see that all were fed, and that there were even leftovers. Maybe the miracle had already begun when that many people gathered together to listen to words spoken in love and truth.

The miracle of our belonging to each other is ongoing. We are in the midst of it right now. God invites us to participate in this miracle by recognizing our common humanity every day. When we refuse to demonize one another, when we recognize God’s presence and activity in our neighbor, when we insist on creating community that promotes the dignity of every human being– we are accepting the miracle.

This is not idealism or flowery thinking. The work of love is not confined to romance. Love is stubborn in its insistence that the person in front of you belongs on this earth, and that you belong too. If Christian Americans are wondering what our part is in the days after November 5^th, this is it: We are commanded by God to love our neighbor with reckless abandon and work together for a more just, free, peaceful, equitable country. We are invited to participate in the ongoing miracle of our shared belonging. We do not need to wait until the days after. I love you today. So it’s already begun.