Reacting to the Election in 2024

Posted on November 6, 2024 Updated on November 6, 2024

I’ve tried to capture my thoughts and emotions on a devastating morning after. The transcript will be posted below the video. I would also offer this 1995 album, Lament, from Resurrection Band… it’s the music of my day.

Beloved, take care of yourselves today, please… AMDG, Todd

2024 Election Reaction, transcript

Like many, I’m having a visceral reaction to the election, a reaction of shame, embarrassment and dismay. I don’t understand the heart and mind of my neighbors who voted for the convicted felon, the one who bragged of sexually assaulting women, a financial huckster with his trading cards, sneakers, Bibles and wristwatches. I don’t understand how my neighbors can reward a politician and a whole political party for January 6th, 2021, or all the election denials and for his speaking so casually of using the Department of Justice and US military against those who disagree with him. 

The part of me that is a US citizen feels lost, without a home and without a people. I didn’t think I could see again such a travesty of justice in my lifetime, such a mockery of our nation’s promise. I feel undone, and I feel as though our nation is coming undone, lost in a fresh miscarriage of truth and hope.

I’m ashamed and I am grieved by those who voted for this dark new chapter of our shared life in the name of God and of Christ. I am afraid for the lasting harm done to our witness and for the tighter hold of ignorance, hatred and idolatry which already strangle our faith. In some ways, the deepest part of me, the largest part and the longest-striving part of me, which is a follower of Christ, feels the deepest disconnect of my life with the broader church in our nation.

All that is part of my truth, but it’s not all the truth I have to hold or to share.

Even if good loses the vote, I will stand for it. Even when goodness loses an election, I will still choose it. When the love of power overshadows the promise of justice, I will align myself with those who the powerful despise. I will name the shame I feel at this election, but I will not allow it to rule me. And when my nation knocks me down, I will get back up. Even when so many followers of Christ make me want to hide away and be silent, I will speak and move, with God’s help.

Even when so many of our neighbors choose the path of shame and make us walk it with them, I cannot hate them. Even when they elect the felon, the abuser, and look to have stacked Congress on his side, I cannot hate them. But I also cannot ignore it. I will name it. I will call out that darkness, loudly and relentlessly. I will not abide this shameful chapter of our life silently. I will shine what little light I have on that darkness and attack every shadow with the strength God gives me. 

For every American who now will fear for their ability to express their own sexually and gender, who fear for their marriage and family, who fear for their privacy and reproductive rights, who fear for their place at the table of civil life and participation, I will not be silent. I will pray and I will keep faith, so that shame becomes motivation. I will speak out and I will act up, so that love and justice have one more voice, as small and weak as mine may be. 

We lost an election, not our light. We hoped for some respite, but again are called to the struggle.