What is Really on my Mind!

Lord, Have Mercy

I wrote this post ten days ago.  I have hesitated to post it because I don't want to offend those I love who disagree with me.

I haven't blogged about the political situation in our country since March during Lent.  But it is on my mind constantly.  I am angry and worried.  In the midst of despair,  I will start with one very positive story.

I think this is how it happened.  Last fall, after the election, D knew that her colleague L really appreciated our church.   D began attending worship and the Women's Study on Tuesday mornings.  In the last few months,  her husband P who has been attending with her, began participating in the Lord's Supper.  D did not come forward because she was never baptized.  Last Sunday D and her 2 year old daughter were baptized and P reaffirmed his faith.  I wept.  I find it so affirming to my own faith to have D and P make this commitment.  D really has been hearing the gospel for the first time in recent months and she has found faith.

And another positive is the many times I have prayed for our country and for wisdom for its leaders because we are in grave danger of going wrong in so many areas.  I don't know when I have ever prayed as often for peace and justice.

I am angry at all those Christians who voted for a man who has been married three times, who used vulgarities to speak of women when he bragged of his sexual prowess, and who regularly sends out insulting and name-calling tweets from the White House--to North Korea, to Democrats, but also to his fellow Republicans. He has tweeted words that have had to be bleeped out of news reports.  He has lied about  President Obama's wire-tapping the Trump Tower, about the size of the inaugaral crowd, and just last week about how Senator Corker, a Republican,  begged for his endorsement and  wanted to be Vice-President, both of which Corker denied.  Senator Corker has referred to the chaos in the White House and the danger of WW III if it was not kept under control.  He is not running for re-election and feels free to speak what he says almost all Republicans in the Senate are thinking.

The country is getting more and more divided along racial lines.  President Trump's tweets seem to encourage this division with his contrasting reaction to hurricanes in the mainland USA and Puerto Rico, with his misunderstanding that kneeling during the National Anthem is a protest against racism,  not veterans, and his defense of  the Confederate monuments which serve to remind "people of color" of a very sad past.

Every day the newspapers are full of news like this.  I take little pleasure in reading the news any more.  I have taken the news app off my phone so I am not tempted to check it so often.

In some ways, I cannot fault President Trump.  He has been a reality show star and he continues in that vein.  I fault those who voted for him who knew what they were getting into when they did.   Some hated Hillary Cliinton so much that they couldn't possibly vote for her. I fault the evangelical Christians who voted "pro-life" as their main issue when to me "pro-life" means so much more than "anti-abortion." 

It is possible that President Trump will find some common ground with the Democatric leadership on improving the Affordable Care Act.  I don't see much hope for gun control or immigration when Building the Wall is still on his agenda as expensive and foolish as that is. It is possible that evidence will be uncovered linking him with Russian influence in the election but that is all pretty murky.  I wonder what I will be blogging on December 31, 2017.
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I just read Margaret Atwood's 2017 introduction to The Handmaid's Tale.  I don't think I have the emotional strength to read the book right now.   Her last few words apply to this blog!

"In this divisive climate, in which hate for many groups seems on the rise and scorn for democratic institutions is being expressed by extremists of all stripes, it is a certainty that someone, somewhere--many I would guess--are writing down what is happening as they are experiencing it. ...Will their messages be suppressed and hidden?  Will they be found, centuries later, in an old house, behind a wall?  Let us hope it doesn't come to that.  I trust it will not."