Devastation and Resurrection : a post-election essay
I was devastated by the outcome of the US general election. And, having spent fifty years meditating, studying, practicing, praying, writing, teaching and preaching equanimity, I was even more devastated by my devastation.
How, how, how have I so unwittingly lost the steadiness, non-clinging, open minded, open hearted, non-attachment to outcome that enables me to consent to the living of these days? What have I done? What have I undone?
When the election was called, everything, everything, everything was thrown against a wall. As an Enneagram 9, a ‘Peacemaker,’ I experience my self as calm, diplomatic, able to see both sides of issues, a peaceful, unifying and reassuring presence to others. Preferring to welcome reality as it arrives, I generally leave the strife of pushing boulders up mountains to someone else. But on Wednesday morning, November 6th, 2024, who I thought I was got smashed against the wall. No unifying contemplative presence, no harmony, no peace, no me.
Even though for decades I have practiced “resisting no thought, retaining no thought, reacting to no thought, returning to peace,” * I have repeatedly taught the St. Ignatian prayer practice of ‘indifference’ (non-attachment to outcome), and been graced with contemplative moments, my thoughts were like a runaway train, my emotions like wild fire. Decades of prayer and practice, smashed against the wall. I was anything but neutral or unaffected by the outcome of the election.
With the wisdom rendered of a rear view mirror, four days later I see, at least in part, what happened. Over the course of the past ten or twelve months I allowed, even welcomed, a flood of news, podcasts, opinions, late night comedians, newsletters and analysis to occupy the territory of my mind and my heart. Gradually, insidiously, my peace and diplomacy were replaced with a zealot’s intolerant point of view. I convinced myself, and believed others would clearly see, to choose one candidate would be a decisive turn toward God. To choose the other would be immoral and immoderate. Elevating my self to the station of godlike purveyor of morality, I lost my practice, my prayer, my peace, my self, and my relationship with God. This was the unbearable devastation of Wednesday morning.
Devastation is another way to say death. Much of me had to die so that I could rise to new life. For that to happen I had to recast my self and my vote for the Kingdom of God, elect the only “empire” to which I pledge my allegiance and, in which garden I must ever so humbly grow, regardless of the tenor of these days.
Clearly I had forgotten a fundamental fact of my faith. The Kingdom of God does not depend on who wins an election. We do not need to elect a king or savior. We already have one. (Thousands of years ago prophets tried to tell this to my Jewish ancestors!) Regardless of who conspires to be ruler of an earthly empire, The Kingdom of God prevails; a seed, a shake of salt, a pinch of yeast, a costly pearl. The incorruptible God of surprises reigns in and through the earthly garden of these days. Let me never again forget, God’s is the only ‘empire’ worthy of real estate in my mind and my heart.
And so, to evict the profane tyrant occupying precious territory in me, I turn toward the One that ultimately destroys abusive power (Daniel 8.25), the One whose, “sovereignty is an everlasting sovereignty, and (whose) kingdom endures from generation to generation.” (Daniel 4.34) Alone, I cannot banish the tyrant. This is the work of God in community.
Saturday I attended my friend Eliab’s contemporary Seventh Day Adventist Church. He preached on our shared, deeply human, nonpartisan longing to belong. Sunday I attended a traditional Episcopal Church service where we sang “ Lo! the hosts of evil round us, scorn the Christ, assail his ways! From the fears that long have bound us, free our hearts to faith and praise; grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of these days….” (Hymn 594, Hymnal 1982) Ah, yes, I need God in a community of faith to free me “for the living of these days.”
There is also something more required of me “for the living of these days. ” I must wholeheartedly reaffirm my election to live by faith, not fear; praising, reverencing and serving God, and using all things created to attain that end. ** Thus am I resurrected today, with renewed purpose and rekindled hope.
Debra Asis
All words are generated by grace and the grit of this real human being.
*Five Rs of Thomas Keating’s Centering Prayer Practice
** The First Principle and Foundation, Ignatian Spiritual Exercises
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