Well, so much for being a poll denier. I made a decision to not believe the polls about the election and trust that good would triumph. While it turns out I was quite wrong, I am grateful to Big Spirit for that gift. While it didn’t protect me from worry, it did help me stay hopeful as I did what I could to support candidates I believed in.

Now what? Again, I am grateful to Big Spirit for the gift of being part of a number of different communities. If you are a regular reader, you know I find strength and support in multiple communities where love and tolerance grow. One of them, Racial Justice Conversations, meets on the first Wednesday of the month. So, we gathered the day after the election, a dozen or so white folks committed to asking ourselves what do we need to learn and do to advance racial justice. 

We acknowledged our feelings or lack of them – disbelief, sadness, numbness, terror, anger. We talked about how hard it was to believe in some force for good. We encouraged each other to forego finding someone to blame. After an hour of sharing, we knew we would continue fighting for love and justice to prevail. We didn’t know how, but some early signals emerged.

One member is part of an Immigration Center in Baltimore. For twenty-five years, this organization has served refugees and immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean and other parts of the world. He had begun to get calls from people of African descent who settled in the US over a decade ago and are now citizens. The election makes them fearful of their ability to stay in the US; they are even apprehensive when their children go off to school.  Legally they have nothing to fear. And imagine the fear of those at risk of deportation? 

Another member mentioned a Sojourner’s article about the need for rest and quiet. She realized she needed to continue to listen in quiet, and to pray to better discern what is hers to do now.

A younger member around 30 talked about how our national divide and the Trump brand of politics are all she has ever experienced. Her hopes for progress were dashed one more time, and she was sad and scared.  She was grateful for this community, a place where she finds support. She was heading off to sing with neighbors and friends at a local church. Her mission was to find consolation and perhaps hope. 

My “eighty-something” cousin is a retired nurse; she remains active, lobbying for people with mental illnesses. Her work and prospects for progress are obviously threatened. She was talking to her colleagues and family, looking for hope. She too was heading off to sing in a choir, wanting to wash her blues away.

Another cousin talked about campaigning with her daughter. It’s painful for them to have believed in and worked for the possibility of a woman president in 2016 and 2024. And having that dream smashed once again.  She finds solace in resolving that she and her daughter will continue the fight until victorious.  She was buoyed by a victory in a state race where she campaigned for a woman friend.

 In this gathering, I was reminded of my mother and my grandparents. My grandfather was politically active in the rural community where my mother grew up. So, she and her two sisters all grew up seeing that involvement in local and national government is important. I recalled my mother’s fearlessness in fighting against what she and her friends thought was intrusive housing development.  In her 70’s, she said yes and served as Treasurer for a woman campaigning for the State Senate. 

Earlier on Wednesday, a professional colleague with whom I’ve stayed connected in my retirement sent me a poem about the election and hope. I sent the poem out to my Racial Justice friends and got two other poems back. All shared the theme of accepting the loss, feeling the feelings, and continuing to work for good in our own unique way. I’ve included one of the poems below.

Telephone calls with Twelve Step friends and conversations with neighbors remind me as well of the simple truth: We need each other. And there is hope always. Light never loses to darkness in the long run. 

The Day After Day by Tim Leadem

What happened? To hope? To positive thinking?

Not that one candidate could have solved anything or even any one of the myriad problems that

beset this crazy world of ours/

This world does not make sense any more

or perhaps it never did make sense-

maybe the idea of a sane loving world was just a lie that we told one another about. To comfort

ourselves

but still it is a lie that allowed us to go on.

I am sure there are some who woke up this morning with a heady sense that the world was

right. But I don’t know any of those people. Or if I do, I want to shake them awake again.

And none of the pundits can explain any of this topsy turvy world to me. To my sense of logical

brain there is something that does not quite compute.

And so I fall back on my faith to see me through. The belief that long ago there was Someone

who preached love and compassion and brought light into an otherwise dismally dark world.

And when I pray to that Light, and think of that Love that is in this world notwithstanding

whatever may have happened

Then I can breathe again and dare to

Believe in hope

And even to smile.