Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.
– Seamus Heaney was an Irish poet who was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.
More and more, I am having conversations with friends and new acquaintances about how hopeless and helpless we feel at times, to make sufficient progress in transforming the world from chaos and mayhem to peace and cooperation. We all make it our daily practice to do something positive toward that end, whether it is prayer and visualization, letter writing and petition signing, committing acts of kindness, penning articles, peaceful protest, voting in every election, with our conscience leading the way.
I often ponder what my state of mind would be if the former president had accepted the outcome of the 2020 election and his voters took his word for it, rather than pledging allegiance to him and The Big Lie. I would be spending far less time in edge of my seat, full fledged hypervigilance mode. If not for his election in 2016, Roe v. Wade would still be intact since he would not have added Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch who, despite saying that it was ‘settled law,’ essentially perjured themselves by voting to overturn it. The terror that pregnant people and their doctors experience as a result, is off the charts. Some emergency rooms are turning pregnant patients away and one miscarried in a restroom in the lobby. Imagine the pain and trauma she experienced.
I had an ectopic pregnancy in 1992 in South Florida. I didn’t even know I was pregnant at the time until severe pain caused by a ruptured fallopian tube, sent me to the ER. Without emergency surgery, I would have hemorrhaged to death. If that occurred now, the surgeon might have had to wait until I was near death, to intervene.
One of the challenges I face is living harmoniously with people I know (blessedly not many)who support him. In my town, there is a house with a banner across the top of the garage that reads TRUMP 2024 and a line beneath it that says ‘take America back.’ There are two ways to read that line, first, implying that they and those who agree with them, want to take the country back from those they fear and for some reason, feel threatened by. These might include immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ folks, and anyone who doesn’t practice religion as they do. It occurred to me today that it could also mean to take the country back in time when only certain people had rights and legitimate voice. Either way, it flies in the face of my cultural and spiritual beliefs. If I felt safe, I would knock on their door and ask for a conversation with the homeowners.
How can so many white Evangelical Christians support a man whose beliefs and actions are as far from what Jesus would have taught as possible? One answer comes from a recently released book called The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy.” by Jim Wallis. Wallis says that Trump and his followers are afraid to have an in depth conversation about the true teachings of Jesus which address some of the pressing issues of our current era, including racism, and poverty.
I think they live with cognitive dissonance and would rather have the power promised by Trump than holding him to a Christ-inspired standard. If given more opportunities, I would question what power they want. I have been invited to address my psycho-social-spiritual-political views via One Small Step which is part of NPR’s feature called Story Corps. I have spoken with two people so far with another coming up this week. In one of them, the other person’s background and backstory were polar opposite mine and the second person and I had far more in common on all levels. Both were valuable and allowed me to evaluate my values.
The second topic that has had me struggling is the ongoing war in the Middle East. I was raised Jewish, with the idea that Israel was to be a safe place for Jews to live during and in the aftermath of WWII. My parents were not Zionists but would lean on the side of Israel. It would have been a stretch for them to see things from the perspective of Palestinians since they viewed Arab countries as being hostile to Israel to the point of wanting to deny its right to exist. What I can say is that the Netanyahu government doesn’t speak for me and I see him as their Trump. I agree that the events of October 7th were horrific and that all of the hostages need to be released. Hamas does not represent all Palestinians, just as the Right-wing government there doesn’t represent all Israelis and they don’t speak for me as an American Jew. It is possible to be pro-Palestinian right to have a safe place to live as well, without conflating it with anti-Semitism. I will also go so far as to say that our government needs to stop funding Israel’s assault on civilians who are not aligned with Hamas. How do we differentiate, especially when Hamas is hiding behind civilians and absconding with humanitarian aid? I don’t claim to know all of the history that fueled the ongoing war and I don’t know how it can end.
One thing I know for certain is that there is good worth working for and I intend to do it with my heart and soul.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
