In my 39 voting years, no election has inspired such controversy as this one. Conflict, anxiety, and divine reassurance came to mind on this momentous election day.
Battle lines are being drawn. That line from the 1966 Buffalo Springfield classic, “For What It’s Worth” applies more than ever five decades later. Our nation is frighteningly divided. Chasms of conflict yawn between classes, genders, races, political parties, and religions. Each sector appears to have its own reality. It’s like my worst cases of couples counseling, in which dialogue has become impossible. Neither spouse can even agree about what happened in the last five days, months, or years of their marriage, much less talk through and resolve it.
Several years ago, I remarked to an acquaintance that the U.S. is going down the tubes. “It’s not Rome before the fall, it’s Rome in the midst of the fall.” I pointed out the dramatic rises in teen STDs and sucides, in out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and in broken families. My acquaintance said my statement was ridiculous. The economy was rebounding, unemployment was down, lots of government programs were helping the poor – what was the problem?
Each of us could have discussed his view with his immediate circle of friends. Each circle would have endorsed its member’s view. Each would have found the other circle’s perspective completely opaque. The Collapse of Western Civilization. Happy Days Are Here Again. Which is it? Depends on whom you ask, even in the same state, town, or neighborhood. The Trump-Hillary divide is just one symptom of a raging disease.
My heart needs to catch up with my Christian convictions. I know that Jesus Christ is the Lord of history. I know that God foresaw this election day from all eternity. I know that the safest place I can be is in the will of God. But in the last few months, as the election day clouds have loomed, I’ve experienced a new kind of anxiety. Out of nowhere, my shoulders and neck will tighten up and pull forward. It’s painful and annoying. I do some deep breathing (really!) and the muscle tension eases up a bit.
But I find myself wondering if the present state of heightened anxiety is a hint of how the Jews felt as the Nazis gained power. A relative of mine made the remarkable observation that she didn’t see any anti-Christian bias in the media. But then, she’s not Christian. For the Christians I know, the bias is obvious throughout the news, movies, and television. Christians and overweight people seem to be the two acceptable groups to mock and denigrate. I could multiply examples but (see above), you either see the reality or you don’t.
For my birthday, my son gave me the recent bestseller and Pulitzer prize winner, All the Light We Cannot See. Great book. But I had to put it down. I have enough tension without seeking it in my leisure reading. The atmosphere of impending doom in pre-Nazi-occupation France and Nazi Germany just felt too familiar. More and more frequently, I wonder what I’ll do if or when I lose my psychology license for refusing to toe the line of political correctness. But not just that: Could I withstand torture? How would I handle prison? Worse, what if my loved ones had to suffer like that? Without God’s grace, no way I can make it.
So I know I need to rest more in the Lord’s promises, pray more earnestly, and seek more intensely the fellowship of others who can remind me that Jesus has the victory. “Let not your hearts be troubled.” (Jn 14:1) “Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Lk 21:28) In The Hiding Place, one of its real-life heroes of the Dutch resistance to Nazism finds that the Lord gives the strength needed at the moment it’s needed – not a second before. Wherever He takes us, He will give us the ticket just before we get on the train.
We are exactly where we need to be. Mary and I were talking yesterday about various ways the Lord has freed us up, healed us, and worked in our lives, especially since our coming to Omaha. We feel a stillness, a readiness that we have never experienced. We don’t know what’s coming, of course. But we feel that God has us just where He wants us. He has opened up doors in our hearts just in time.
In another passage from The Hiding Place, someone remarks, “If God has shown us bad times ahead, it’s enough for me that He knows about them. That’s why He sometimes shows us things, you know – to tell us that this too is in His hands.” In His mercy, God has has brought us to Omaha, a real center of Catholic Christian renewal. He has placed us in a number of intensely committed faith-sharing communities. He has deepened my family’s reliance on Him as our Father, Mary as our Blessed Mother, and Jesus as our Brother and Friend. Out of His graciousness to us and those He’s connected us with, He has equipped us to give and to share in these upcoming days of trial and glory. And of course, He’s similarly doing working in the lives of all who cling to Him. That’s an election reflection to hang on to.
