Bob's Blog

It was an embarrassing blog!

On November 6, 2016, the morning of Election Day, I wrote . . . “I believe in America!”

I was convinced that policies and politics aside, there was no way the American people were going to send Donald Trump to the White House.  I wrote about the “spirit of America . . .  a Spirit of grace, generosity, civility, and love.”  I wrote about how I believed that our nation had learned to “recognize, name, and eradicate the color, gender, and religious bias in our life together.” And I wrote about my conviction that we would “do the right thing.”

The words came easily: too easily, I have since discovered!  Like so much of human sin, when challenged and confronted it often moves underground.  It goes into hiding and works in secret.  And that is what had been happening in America.  Our sin – racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and patriarchy – which was so visible to some, was invisible to others.  People like me had naively thought such sins had been lamented and confessed, and that we were moving on.  We believed that most of our nation was hanging . . . no, swinging! . . . on the moral arch of universe, forcing it to bend, and to move cultures and societies closer to God’s reign in the world.

But oh how wrong we were.  Oh how wrong I was!  We did NOT do the right thing, and I am embarrassed by that blog.  With the election of Donald Trump, our sins were put on display for all the world to see; and today, three years later, those sins have been legitimized and nurtured.  Sadly, for far too many of us, that have become a condoned new sense of the normal.

But here in Virginia, yesterday, Election Day 2019, revealed that things may be changing.  It appears that perhaps our nation is learning a few things.  Maybe business people, whose primary goal is always going to be personal profit, are not the best leaders of nations; for the skills required to be a CEO, or a real estate mogul, are different than those required to run a government.  Maybe ‘outsiders’ can be sometimes be so ‘outside’ that they have no idea what they are doing; for not not all bureaucracy is bad, and sometimes it provides a structure for governing, and a cadre of people who know what needs to be done in order to keep the wheels of government moving forward.  Maybe character and integrity really do matter; because words, behaviors, and lifestyles reveal a great deal about what is in a person’s heart, and they can never be overlooked because of a particular political agenda.

Election Day 2018 and 2019 have offered me some hope.  My faith in the American people is beginning to be restored; and not just because people in my political party are winning elections.  Rather, at least for me, every election since 2016, and right on thru 2020, is about nothing and no one but Donald Trump!.  And Americans are finally beginning to reject him.  People are finally coming together; and not necessarily around gun, abortion, military, or even financial policies.  America is coming together to reject everything that the current administration represents: narcissism, greed, arrogance, ineptitude, vulgarity, and lies.

For three years many have been saying that people like me to need to ‘get over’ what happened three years ago: that people like me need to stop whining, and instead do a better job of listening to those with whom I disagree.  They have been crying out for a return to civility in our national discourse, and for the eradication of the polarization that is plaguing American politics.  And they have been quick to challenge the American people to embrace the ‘purple’ nature of our families, communities, and churches.

But I continue to believe that if being purple means accommodating the national sin that is Donald Trump, I will continue to avoid the color purple.   And if ‘red’ America is going to continue to avoid rejecting his ways, then I will continue to work to make blue waves a reality around this country.  I will do that as a husband to a gifted wife and as a father to a remarkable daughter.  I will do that as a friend to countless immigrants and people in the LGBTQ community.  I will do that as a citizen of the world and as a member of the great human family.  And I will do that as a follower of Jesus Christ, and a leader in the faith community.

Perhaps, contrary to what so many would have us believe, the Trump presidency will not leave America more divided than ever.  Perhaps his time in office will leave us more united than ever.  And perhaps that unity will be around the things that really matter . . . things like justice, equality, goodness, decency, and truth.  For in the end, those are the only things that ever can, or that ever will, make America truly great!

May that be our goal.  May that be our prayer.