Not My President (?)

On any given day since November 8th, I am not sure which emotion is going to beat out all of the others for top position. Outrage, anger, depression, and terror have all been top contenders, but today I mostly feel embarrassed.

The president of the United States commented that he had just left the Middle East while he was in Israel. His official statement on the Manchester terrorism event  called the attackers "evil losers," and his note at Yad Vashem, a Holocaust memorial in Israel, read like the note of a school field tripper who was just glad to have an excuse to ditch class: "It's so great to be here with all of my friends. So amazing!" At best, everything this man says and does sounds like an adolescent schoolyard bully, but he's not a child. He is just too intellectually lazy and emotionally incurious to care about anything but his own popularity and power. It embarrasses me. I am ashamed that this man leads my country and I worry about what the rest of the world now things about us. How could anyone elect this man to lead a nation?

But here's the thing: I didn't vote for him. He's "not my president," right? Why am I so embarrassed? It's not like he represents me or my values. I did everything I could to prevent his election. Why am I wracked with embarrassment while his supporters are incapable of being shamed by his actions?

I think part of the answer to these questions is that, though he does not represent my values or my beliefs, I come from the community that widely endorse this man. I am white and Christian. Growing up, I never heard the terms "evangelical" or "mainline." I was just a Christian. I had no familiarity with denominations or with these labels, but I grew up in non-denominational churches that were non-affirming of queer people, that denied any scriptural authority to women, and denied the possibility of evolution. The churches I attended did not always scream their conservatism from the roof tops. In fact I only realized some of their stances from noticing what was taught and not taught, how certain scriptural passages were interpreted, who was allowed to speak on Sunday mornings. In the current political climate, these stances have become more boldly stated. I was recently Facebook stalking a former pastor and I found out he is now involved with what I would label a truly nutjob church. Their statement of faith denies the validity of psychology and counseling, labeling it anti-biblical because it robs God of his authority. Really. When I think about the damage that that position could cause, especially when you consider that the church is non-affirming of queer existence. Queer Christians have the highest suicide rate in the nation and you want to deny them the counseling that could be life saving? It disgusts me. And I was a bit horrified that this man used to deliver sermons to me every Sunday. What other sorts of dangerous ideologies did he have that I never knew about? When I look at all of this, I understand how people in these churches could be convinced to vote for Trump in droves.

Now, I do not want to sound ungrateful for my childhood and adolescent churches. I wouldn't trade away my summers at church camps or the personal faith that often sustained me in adolescence. I still find solace in many of the worship songs I sang in these churches. My siblings and I were all raised in this brand of Christianity, and we all became empathetic, balanced, and open-minded adults. There were also some things that I would change if I could--the sexist and damaging purity rhetoric that only targeted girls, and the youth group meeting where the pastor told us that a nuclear bomb had been launched towards us so that we would get right with God (really), for starters. While I can name the blessings of this faith tradition, I left this brand of Christianity several years ago.

The Christ in my gospels in on the margins. He stands by the vulnerable and he is not interested in rejecting outsiders from his presence. My Christianity is about recognizing the image of God in all of humanity, it's about defending human dignity. My Christianity is about realizing that we are all one, and anything that harms one individual is anti-Christ. This includes homophobia, racism, sexism, war, terrorism, hate crimes, etc. etc. etc. And while there are some evangelical churches that practice this type of Christianity, I have found this expression of faith in the Episcopal church.

So, I am a former Conservative Christian and because of this Trump is my president. The church that elected Donald Trump is in my blood, and perhaps that is why I feel a bit complicit and embarrassed. I also feel complicit (and complicit by the dictionary definition, not the Ivanka definition) because I failed to reach my people over 2016. My Facebook friends can all attest that my 2016 posts were largely addressed to White Christians. I spent the year desperately trying to appeal to our common faith. I was convinced that they could see that Christ's message was one of radical inclusion, that the gospel truth is that we should welcome the stranger, that all humans carry the image of God and so of course black lives matter. But I couldn't even convince people in my immediate family of this. I failed, and I suspect that I failed because I struggle to "speak the truth in love" instead of screaming the truth in outrage and frustration, and so I accept some responsibility for Trump's election.

Finally, when I started this blog I said I was going to address my tendencies to be an asshole. You perhaps noticed that my tone is a bit more vitriolic than my progressive profession of faith might suggest. Here, I say that when I look at the gospels I see a Christ that is interested in radical inclusion and yet, I love to say that what Trump supporters believes is not Christian. I say Christ includes everyone, but I still groan when my church prays for POTUS in our Prayers of the People every Sunday. And I would grimace if someone showed up to church in a MAGA hat. So, I am working on it. His supporters may support things that I see as purely anti-Christian, but they are still Christian. I do not know their relationship with Christ and I do not know the mind of God. Even though the Episcopal Church is more liberal than most, I am sure that when I take communion every Sunday I am at the table with Trump voters, which means we are one in Christ. And I am working on accepting that. I'll close with a passage from a prayer from St. Augustine's Prayer Book that I have to pray quite frequently since the election:

Grant, O Lord, that I may remember your rule and follow your example by loving my enemies and by speaking the truth in patience and love. Give me courage to work for what is right and just in all of my dealings. Temper any righteous indignation with patience and humility and keep me from any collusion with injustice. 

Amen.

Start a Blog, They Said

2016 has brought a lot of ugliness to the forefront of America's consciousness. Half of the country watched in horror as the other half elected a man who seems to represent the worst of this country: nativism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, ableism, etc. etc. etc.; name a prejudice and we bleeding hearts can point to the ways in which Trump has bolstered it. Among those of us who watched in horror and disbelief were those who were watching the culture they were raised in pledge allegiance to this man and the hate he represents. I'm speaking specifically as someone raised in the White Conservative Christian culture. So, for me, it felt personal. The same people who ingrained WWJD in my adolescent brain lined up to endorse a man who represents so much that Jesus opposed: assault and disrespect of women, robbing of the poor, unapologetic dishonesty, etc, etc, etc. I was perplexed, heartbroken, betrayed, and angry for much of 2016, and all of that has remained with me since his election. All of this heartbreak and anger manifested in several ways in my life. I remain depressed and every day feels like waking up in a hell dimension. I now invest a lot of my time into following international politics that I would not have cared about one year ago (CONGRATS to the French for rejecting their own racist psychopath). And I now suffer from a tendency to get on my soapbox on Facebook. It is that last development that has led to this blog.

While my Facebook rants and ramblings have been welcomed by some on my feed, they have resulted in a fair amount of blocking and nastiness from some in my family. And that's fine, really. Throughout it all, I've had several people tell me I should start a blog. Some of them suggested this as an underhanded way to get me to STFU on Facebook. If I start a blog, offended parties can just choose to not click into the posts rather than having to be reminded that I find their behavior and their candidate deplorable on a regular basis. This blog isn't for them. Some suggested it in a genuine way, implying that they appreciate my voice and maybe my stark, and I guess this blog is a little bit for them. However, most of all I guess this blog is for me. If my Facebook rants are any indication, I have a lot of processing to do, so why not channel it into a blog?

Once I decided to give in to the suggestions that I start a blog, the first difficulty was what it should focus on. There are enough people on the internet sharing their moral outrage so I did not want it to be necessarily a political blog. Plus, I fear having to deal with the Pepes and trolls in the comments section if my blog found its way into the deplorable circles of internet hell. For me, the biggest struggle with all of this has been that my journey from Republican teenager to Bleeding-Heart adult (maybe I'll share more on that later) has largely been caused by development in my empathy. I know in my bones that Trump is despicable and vile because I now empathize with communities that I never thought about when I was more conservative. In part, this is due to my Liberal Arts education and in part it is due to listening to new voices (in the classroom, on Twitter, through literature, etc.). My bleeding-heart sensibilities have also been strengthened by my journey towards a more progressive Christianity, following the lead of my spiritual gurus, Anne Lamott, Diana Butler Bass, Rachel Held Evans, and Nadia Bolz-Weber, among others. And therein lies the rub. If I claim that empathy is what led me to become more liberal, then how can I hate Trump and his voters with a sometimes-all-consuming passion? (And I do). How do I resist the assholes without lapsing into asshole-dom myself?

So, I titled this blog "Confessions of a Recovering Asshole" because I recognize the tendency in myself to be an asshole. When I see loads of rich white men celebrating stripping healthcare away from millions, I think Ugh! Have some empathy you shitheads!, and then I wish pre-existing conditions on those men. When I see a Trump/Pence bumper sticker, hatred boils in my stomach and I think What trash! See the problem with that? Now I'm not saying that everyone should feel guilty for wishing suffering on the men who are bankrupting our nation to line their pockets; I am just saying I do, because it is out of step with my own journey. So, I'm here to call out my own asshole moments, work on keeping my empathy even while I watch those in power dismantle good programs and endanger people I care about, and maybe just maybe escape the perpetual outrage culture I find myself enmeshed in. Because I do not want to contribute to the ugliness that is boiling over in this country. I want to try to speak from love and I desperately want to come out of all of this without a hatred of humanity, and neither of those are easy things right now. So, join me, or don't. I may post frequently, or I may not. My blog may be helpful or entertaining to any readers that stumble across it, but I'm perfectly fine if the only person it helps is me.