The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--41. Every Good Thought Has as Its Potential Reality.

The Canyon Mountains the Day after the Election, Steve Brown 2024

Trump has been elected a second time.  I believe hard times are soon to follow.  Our constitution may be shredded and democracy left dangling by a thin string.   His presidency will most assuredly spell heartache and terror for illegal immigrants here seeking refuge from the brutal realities they were born into and have had to raise their own families amidst.  Many will be sent back to worlds of poverty, rape and violence.  Christians here will watch it on their television screens either believing it is a righteous act implemented by a righteous man, or who will more likely think it's awful, but will ultimately not have the courage to believe in a God of miracles or a nation strong enough to support opening our home to so many people.  They will believe in an overcrowded inn that must close its doors.  These Christians will continue to go to church, to be friendly, to be generous with their donations, to be kind to neighbors, to spend a few weeks in foreign countries building houses for the poor.  They are, after all, good people, and will continue to be.  

However, there is some small, dense part of these good people that puts limits on God and places more faith in the material world than in their redeemer.  They think things like, we simply can't take in the whole world.  And they have two minds--their Sunday mind that believes in Christ and wants to do good, and their weekday mind who believes everyone is out to get their jobs, that there can only be so many winners, and that it's a dog-eat-dog world where only the strong survive and you better get yours now before it's taken.  These scream loudest that they are Christian because in their hearts they doubt the power of divine goodness, and they scream I am a Christian until their faces are red to silence the terror in their hearts that they are powerless in a brutal, unfair world.

And along has come a Savior to give all that fear a face and a name--Other--and to declare their desires: you are great, you are good.  All your problems are because of them--the other--and I am here to redeem you.

He is a false savior, an antichrist, who preaches fear and hate, the exact opposite of faith and love.  And they follow.  They follow a warped vision of the world that separates an "us" and demonizes "others," a world that believes in scarcity and limitations over abundance and infinite glory, that believes in fear and submission over faith and deliverance, and they ultimately believe in the susceptibility of the flesh over the power of the spirit.

The soul of a Trump-voter, like most of us, is a good person who doesn't have the faith to live in a world without fear and limitations, who gets aggressive towards science and facts and Darwinism because those reinforce what they fear (but will not recognize) at their core--that this is a world of scarcity and if they want to survive, someone else has got to be deprived, and they need a warrior to protect them.

I do not believe in such a world.  I believe in science and facts and evolution and take climate change seriously, but I also know those are small windows on an infinite reality that is ever-expanding with abundance, and that our knowledge and understanding of reality is miniscule but growing, that what we know today will pale in comparison to what we know in a decade.  I believe in an existence of free choice and agency, but one where God is good and grand enough to make every righteous desire come true eventually: a world where if enough people believe in equality and prosperity for everyone, there will be equality and prosperity for everyone; a world where if enough people believe in clear skies and clean water and carbon-neutral energy such a world will surely exist; a world where if enough people believe in love and understanding, such a world will evolve; a world where if enough people believe in education and facts and science and empowerment, it will be.

This world we are now collectively creating is the shadow world--the negative of our potential, and that man about to take the White House represents the darkness of our fears and faithlessness, and I cannot hate him because I know he is symbolic of the dark shadow of all of us, the antichrist in each of our own souls--the us that doubts the power of goodness and charity.  But I also know there is a light, and a God, and a connection with all living things that is observable and accessible right now, and it is unstoppable if we choose to believe every good thought has as its potential reality. 

And that is what I lean into now--belief in a nation open to all who seek its safety; belief in a nation courageous enough to tackle climate change; belief in a nation generous to assist each other through the tempests and droughts that happen in the meantime; belief in a nation that will ultimately choose democracy over dictators, and only serves one King--that gentle ruler of love, acceptance and charity, who cares more about what is in your heart than what you are burning down in his name.

Burning down love, burning down love.

What more?  In the name of.