Crossing the Line

 It has been a long time since I posted something to this blog.  I shuttered it largely due a lack of time and feeling like I had nothing to add to the conversation.  However, in the aftermath of the election I am moved to speak, to critically examine an idea that we in the Judeo-Christian community need to consider with a sober and searching heart, regardless of what side we voted for.  If you don't consider yourself a part of this community, or you don't agree with the assumptions at the beginning of the post, please gently consider that you might not be the intended audience of this post and refrain from posting inflammatory or argumentative comments.  This post is not for you.  And as someone who struggles to manage her "spoon count" so that she doesn't run out of spoons before she retires to bed, I again ask you to graciously consider that if you are not a part of the target audience that you don't start a flame war in the comments section or on my FB wall.  If you don't feel that you can respect that request, please stop reading and move on.

If you are still reading, I am making the following assumption: all of us here believe that we are not the ultimate deciders of our political fate.  That we are merely tools in the hands of a Divine Being who uses us, despite our imperfections, to carry out a Divine Plan.  If this is not your belief, then the rest of this is not written for you.  For those of you who do believe that we are tools in the hands of something Greater than ourselves, then we must thoughtfully consider the following argument:

The Divine Plan allowed Trump to be elected in 2016, and, for reasons beyond our ability to understand, allows him to suffer defeat in 2020.  We do not understand why, but, arguably, it is not our place to understand why. Rather, we need to accept  - as with so many other things we struggle to accept - that there is a Reason, and part of our having faith is accepting that we may never understand that Reason during our lifetime.  

This change of Divine selection is not new.  It is, in fact, something we have seen time and again, beginning with the Divine selection of Judges, and then first Israelite king, Saul.  Initially, Saul was humble; he was a servant who accepted his place and his role in leading the Chosen people.  He sought wisdom, acted in accordance with the guidance given to him by priests, prophets, judges, and counselors.  He acted on behalf of the people, implementing what G-d wanted and carrying out that Divine Plan. He "walked with G-d."

But somewhere along the way that changed.  Saul "grew proud."  The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible does not elaborate on what exactly this pride was or where it came from.  He "grew jealous" particularly of David.  He began to suffer from other issues that impacted his ability to rule in a way that was in harmony with what G-d wanted.  He grew apart from G-d, and despite repeated attempts by his prophets and advisors to bring him back and help him reconcile with G-d and the people, he continued to drift further and further away from the Divine plan.  Somewhere, and it isn't exactly clear where, Saul crossed a line where he was unable to continue to carry out the Divine plan G-d had for the Israelite people, and instead became a harmful influence and a source of division. 

Which brings me back to the election and our current situation.  While we may be tempted to call the results "unfair," and "fraudulent," and make accusations of stealing and corruption, we must also consider the possibility that somewhere, in some way, Trump went the way of Saul, and crossed the line between being someone whom G-d could use and someone who presented a danger to the future of the Israelite nation.  If we agree that we believe that G-d uses flawed and imperfect people to further his work, then we must also accept that, like Saul, there may be cases where G-d decides that this person causes great harm to the people that he is supposed to be serving, and withdraws his blessing of leadership (as he did with Saul) and gives it to someone else - in our case, Joe Biden. 

For those of us who supported Trump, this loss is a sting.  We did our part - we voted, we campaigned, some of us may have even contributed money or volunteered with a local election team.  Right now things feel very dark and scary. We feel disappointed.  We feel cheated. We feel grief and loss. We wondered how this could have happened. We look at our friends, those we saw supporting Biden, and wonder how they could support someone we find untenable - perhaps even wondering how G-d and the Universe could let this happen.  There is the temptation to fight back.  

But now is not the time for action.  Now is the time for silence.  To allow ourselves to feel what we feel - all of it - and resist the temptation to act impulsively.  Right now, our first priority is to stop and wait for the whirlwind of emotions and storms of impulse to subside, so, like Elijah, we can hear G-d in the stillness and receive a message of comfort and hope.  By allowing G-d to speak to us and comfort us, we can be reassured that even though we do not understand why this happened, it is a part of The Plan; we need to let go of our desire to control the outcome and have things to go "our way." Instead, we need to have the courage to believe that things are going G-d's way according to The Plan.  Right now, we need to have faith, wait and see what G-d has planned, and reach out to comfort others who are, like us, struggling with trying to understand how this could happen, and where is G-d in all of this.

We may look back when things are less emotional, less fraught, and with a more discerning eye see how we have been divided.  We may possibly see, perhaps only faintly, where Trump had the potential to set things in motion that would have had disastrous consequences later on.  We may see how our beliefs and loyalties were used to create division where we might have built relationships.  Again, this is nothing new.  The clashes between David's supporters and Saul's supporters were violent and bloody.  There are accounts of how families were torn apart over the issue of loyalties.  There are stories about how there were truces and periods of peace, followed again by violence and destruction - instigated by both sides. Following the death of Saul and the end of the civil war between the tribes of Israel, it took both sides willing to be brave and come together in order to heal the nation and return to G-d's Plan for them.  Like them, we may be called to be brave and come together to seek peace.

For those of us who supported Biden, now is not the time to gloat.  There is no glory in a victory that demeaned others by calling them names, casting aspersions on their intelligence, ridiculing their choice of faith, their values, and their world view in an effort to gain an advantage.  If we think that we were successful at refraining from doing those things personally,  look again at what those on our side did when raising his banner.  Were we as a group unkind, hurtful, boastful? Did we use their own teachings or beliefs against them? Did we turn a blind eye to what our friends did even though we knew it was hurtful? What they did colors all of us.  Reading the books of Samuel and Kings with a critical eye reveals that both sides participated in violence and bloodshed in order to promote their chosen leader.  We have been no different.  

While it is tempting to scapegoat the loosing side with the responsibility for how things went down, a thoughtful and sober read of the years of civil war and unrest between Saul and David tells a story of how both sides acted honorably and both sides acted with malice, neither side willing to step down and cede control to Divine Authority or wait for clear guidance from a judge, prophet, seer, or messenger as to what were the appropriate next steps.  The conflict only ended after Saul and Jonathan - whom David "loved more than a brother" - were killed in the heat of battle.  Even then, it took many years following Saul's death and David's ascent to the throne to completely end the low-level infighting between supporters of Saul and supporters of David; fighting that threatened the tenuous peace that held the kingdom together.  We too, are likely to enter a time of tenuous peace, and unless we are willing to own up to the hurt we have caused and the injustices we have perpetrated against those who followed their conscious and believed that they were doing the right thing, we are likely to continue the hurt and discord, similar to the discord that plagued David in the early years of his reign and caused further violence and unrest. 

It is time to lay down the banners.  It is time to stop the hurtful behavior.  It is time to pray, to listen, to ask for forgiveness, and to offer forgiveness when it has been sincerely asked for.  In the words of Abraham Lincoln, it is "time to bind up the wounds of the nation."