These days it feels like our society’s fabric is tearing so badly I can no longer read a book like I Cheerfully Refuse. Leif Enger’s dystopian novel, gives me nightmares because it’s too close to what life might be like in the very near future. Enger imagines a world where you can’t hide from the technocrats, who think nothing of murdering a beloved wife, where the grief is palpable, and small-town America is wrecked.
I may close the book, which sucks because his sentences are so beautiful and the story says don’t stop reading now.
I remind myself, Enger’s future is not here. Not now. Even though it feels like the fabric of society is tearing, I bear witness to the quiet heroes: The church lady who watched over a mentally disabled man, who wasn’t related, for twenty years. The lawyer, who should be retired, who works for a state’s attorney’s office defending family services in order to protect abused children. The atheist who mentors a young man through the Big Brother organization, and helps people sort out their finances. The several families who’ve adopted autistic or abused children.
Maybe the fabric isn’t as torn as I think it is. Maybe that’s the joke, that isn’t funny. A joke the extremes chatter in our ears: “Be angry. Be afraid. The center isn’t holding.” Maybe we aren’t as different as the extremes want us to think. Maybe the fabric is holding and our heroes are those quiet neighbors doing good work.
I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective.
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“Vote for Joe, not the Psycho” says the hat. A woman insists her husband give it to her doctor because she’s afraid he’d be attacked there in a red state. The photo shows a man on horseback riding into Danbury, Connecticut with a Trump 2024 flag. I gasp because an outraged motorist could swerve or honk his horn, startling the horse, who might throw the rider. The above picture illustrates the simmering anger and helplessness people are feeling. So much seems upside down. So much seems to defy common sense.
Many on Facebook are driven by passion to play the prophet. People think if we don’t speak for our side, we’ll be like the “good Germans” who stood by watching Hitler come into power. I feel helpless as I watch two mean old men run for president. Both represent chaos. The election will not solve anything because half the country will be furious at the outcome. Both say the other side will destroy the country.
There are people beloved to me who peer at the world through left sided glasses, a few of whom, dear to me, are ready for ’empire to be torn down’. There are people beloved to me who peer at the world through right sided classes, a few of whom who are ready for civil war. There are people, me included, who are silent, praying, putting love of neighbor or friend above the culture war.
I wonder if the old version of revival might save us. In early revivals, the Spirit of the Lord broke out when people reconciled with each other, when they turned to each other and confessed their animosity and asked for forgiveness. I wonder if a way to push against the chaos, is to reject outrage and fear, to reject our need to be right, and instead find a way make peace with our neighbors. We may need to start by praying for hearts to soften, especially our own.
Some words from Psalm 50, the morning Psalm for May 6 seemed to speak to this. “You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you” (Psalm 50:15 – 21, ESV). Maybe we should listen to this. Maybe we should stop badmouthing each other. Maybe we should stop the outrage. Maybe we should listen and ask questions about others’ beliefs. Heck, maybe we should simply ask how are you? a question that seems out of favor these days.
Perhaps the old story of Perseus and Medusa, whose hair curled with snakes and who turned people to stone speaks to the tongue framing deceit. We are bathed in lies these days. It’s hard to sort out what is true, what is false. At the Symbolic World Summit, Martin Shaw said maybe we shouldn’t look directly at the evil, but through the reflection in our shield. Our shield. We need a shield. Christians call it the shield of faith, trust that “all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well.” Trust that Christ is here reconciling the world to himself. Maybe the chaos that is here, that is coming is like the monster with snakes in her hair. Maybe we should stop looking, because those events are so awful, so overwhelming, we turn to stone. Our hearts turn to stone. We freeze in our tracks, doing no good. Not ordering our lives. Maybe we should beware of violating our joy by fixing our eyes on the awful because it stops us dead in our tracks, turns our hearts to stone.
Maybe we should seek reconciliation, because people are not their ideas, even ideas we consider reprehensible. After all reconciliation is everyone’s destiny. In the words of St. Paul: “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5: 18 – 19, ESV).
A story our pastor recounted in church, speaks to this. He reminded us how the king of Syria sent chariots and horses and an army’s worth of soldiers to capture Elisha. His servants were terrified. Elisha said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6: 16, ESV). But Elisha asked God to open their eyes. They saw a mountain on fire with God’s chariots and horses. When the Syrians came against them, Elisha prayed they be struck with blindness and lead them to Samaria. But instead of allowing them to kill them, Elisha told the king to feed them and send them on their way. Even with mortal enemies, even with God’s fiery chariots surrounding him with power, Elijah offered bread and drink. Maybe we should know there are horses stomping and chariots ringed around us, we should know we are safe enough to feed our neighbor who might look like our enemy.
The final verse of Psalm 50 tells us how to cope with nightmares born of chaos: “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!” (Ps 50: 23, ESV). So I offering thanks for this present moment, for the good things in life like hay drying after three days and put up before the rain, the men who helped us put it up, Bruce walking across the yard with a pitcher to snip tulips and irises and bring them to the house, moonlight throwing shadows of the tree on the barn, and rain, with the promise “he will come to us like rain, the spring rain watering the earth” (Hos. 6:3).
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