In Bill O’Reilly’s recent book on the defeat of Japan in WWII, he cites an eye-witness at Hiroshima as saying, simply but profoundly, there were no words to accurately describe the scene. It is somewhat the same after the recent American presidential election. I suggest, with deference, a few words on “the strangest presidential election in American history.”
“Shock!” How is it possible that so many pundits, life-long students of politics, got it all so wrong? And for outsiders to beat the massive machine? Pleasurefully or painfully, Americans are sitting in a pool of stun.
“Thanks!” That word goes to many, whether they like or dislike the winner. Here is a partial list: Barack Obama, a do-nothing Congress, Loretta Lynch, Julian Assange, Jonathan Gruber (the Obama Care “architect”), Mary Landrieu (senator from Louisiana who got 4.3 billion dollars Medicaid aid for her state for voting for Obamacare), a woefully inadequate (I kindly suggest) State Department , the liberal press/media, and Hillary. Be proud today; without your help, the news would be strikingly different.
“Maybe!” Is our new president going to lead to substantive improvement? Will he represent America well on the world stage? Will he keep his well-developed gift for invective in check? Will the Congress work together for America’s good? Will the Supreme Court have a deeper respect for our Constitution? Will the professional haters, of every stripe, become less toxic? Will the same justice be meted out to all on the same basis? One can only say, if honest, “maybe!” Perhaps a few have the temerity to say, at the least, “I hope so!” (Not a bad fourth word.)
“Humility!” If there is, indeed, a God who rules the cosmos, and if He told the truth when He said, “Pride goes before a fall,” and “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted,” and “These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: a proud look…” (add fifty other biblical proscriptions on hubris), and if that God meant what He said, the “winners” must be extremely careful about crowing.
Perhaps, then, the most important act you personally (!) can contribute to a better America is to humble yourself, repent of your sins (ask Him; He knows!), and persistently—and joyously—obey Him. We have just learned, again, that the act of an individual voting really does count. That is true on earth, but a single act of repentance literally moves all heaven to joy. (Luke 15:10) And has a redeeming effect on earth as well!
You may be very busy, but it would be time well spent to google up Rudyard Kipling’s “Recessional,” a poem of timeless beauty and eternal truth written to Englishmen at the time of England’s world-wide industrial hegemony, when it was said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire.” Then quietly pore over the second stanza, a sobering word amidst “the tumult and the shouting” accompanying the recent election.
Many, millions perhaps, who either have been left out, or feel they have been left out, of American privilege, have a right to rejoice. My counsel is to do so, exuberantly if you wish, but all the while remembering God’s ancient and acceptable sacrifice.