November 2-6: Dust Is Settling, Presidential Election, "This Morning I Pray for My Trump-Loving Brother"

 I am sorry for my prolonged absence.  Because of the November 3rd election, I decided to take an extended break.  Knowing myself, and the contentious days that would surround the United States' Presidential election, I chose not to give myself the opportunity to spew vitriol or wallow in public despair.

The dust is settling now, and, though no winner in the race for the White House has been declared, I have regained some kind of equilibrium.  Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning, I literally told my daughter, "Someone needs to poor gasoline on this country and torch this fucker."  While still disappointed in the number of people who still support the current resident of the Oval Office, I have been surviving on hope these last few days, even as the COVID cases in the United States continue to climb faster than King Kong at the Empire State Building.

And I've been trying to embrace understanding, even though I really don't understand racism or sexism or Islamophobia or homophobia.  Basically, I don't understand intolerance.  I am intolerant of intolerance.  I will admit that I have spent much of the last four years wishing nuclear apocalypse on all of the missing links who crawled out from under their rocks when Donald Trump was elected.  And perhaps that makes me no better than them.  I have allowed myself to hate openly.  Loudly.  Frequently.

While I am enjoying the adolescent spasms and tantrums and meltdowns that Mr. Trump and his followers have been having these last five days, I have come to realize that my behavior, while more measured and diluted with humor, is not much better.  We are a deeply divided people in the United States.  That's what this election is proving.  

How do we go about healing what ails us?  I'm a Christian.  If I'm going to practice what I preach, I have to follow this tiny directive:  "Love your neighbor as yourself."  And, perhaps even more difficult:  "Love your enemies.  Do good to those who hate you."  

So, on this evening, at a time in this country's history when turning the other cheek will get you slapped. over and over and over, I'm trying to move forward, with hope for something better.  

In the middle of a pandemic, in a country white supremacy and hatred thrive like dandelions, Saint Marty chooses love.  Always.

This Morning I Pray for My Trump-Loving Brother

after Joy Harjo

by:  Martin Achatz

You with your injured heart standing in the unemployment line of your breast, like those people collecting welfare and Medicaid for sitting on their asses every day.  You with your Confederate punchlines, still fighting the Civil War 155 years after that bullet entered Lincoln's skull.  You who haven't voted since Mike Dukakis jumped into that tank.  

This morning, I think of you, waking in your bed.  How you lie there, feel that muscle in your chest strain and gulp and skip.  You'll probably never see another president chosen.  Will feel your ventricles and atria slow and slow, collapse like an old barn roof.   Perhaps, then, you'll realize the world loves you more than you hate it.  Love always trumps hate, brother.  And when that last election day arrives for you, I pray, pray, pray that someone will be there to take your hand, kiss its thick knuckles, hold it until you cast your final vote.