I'm Standing Beside You

I have spent the past week trying for a mental health reset.

Since last Tuesday, I have tried to take as much time as possible away from politics, social media, and news generally. I’ve desperately needed the detox.

I wish I had something in the way of answers for all of you on what happens next for our country and the world, but I don’t.

I have my own thoughts about the Election, I hope to share those soon, and more importantly, I hope to do so with the thoughtfulness and humility this conversation deserves.

I admit that my first inclination was not to immediately diagnose and prescribe a remedy because I believe our problems—within our political system and our country—are far too complicated for the innumerable shotgun takes currently permeating the eager, cannibalizing embrace of social media and most of legacy media.

So, as of this writing, I admit that I don’t yet have enough confidence in telling you what I know what happens next in our political trajectory — and how to fix it.

Instead, for now, I will tell you what I do know beyond any shadow of a doubt, and I hope that can offer some semblance of comfort.

Many of you who follow this blog—perhaps most of you—are not religious, and I completely understand that vantage point. I’m not here to sell you on my faith. I’m not here to convert you. I’m not here to insist that you agree with my outlook.

If anything, especially lately, I think there’s been far too much insistence on purist alignment with the perspectives of each other and not enough listening to each other, and I believe that has played an especially significant role in how we got here.

I only offer what I’m about to say in the hope that it may get you through idle moments of anxiety and depression in the coming weeks and months and years.

So, here’s what I know:

I am a consistently imperfect person—I’d like to think beautifully imperfect most of the time—and I cannot possibly grasp God’s own understanding. There is a liberation that can be found in recognizing our vast and frail limitations as human beings.

All of us—every single one of us, regardless of background and views and actions—are consistently imperfect, and there is beauty to be found in the imperfections of each other.

I know what Christ teaches us: that we are to love God, that we are love to our neighbor, that we are to exercise grace with each other, that we are to feed the hungry, house the unhoused, lift up the meekest among us, and, of course, most frustratingly, that we are to love our enemies.

I don’t mind telling y’all: it’s that last bit that’s been very difficult to master because it often feels inexplicable that Christ is telling me to expect harm from horrible people and then somehow love those people in response.

Christ tells me to love even those people who claim to love Him while relentlessly disregarding His teachings they find inconvenient — that would be most of His teachings, of course.

Even when they know they’re wrong. Even when they intend to inflict harm. Even when they enjoy inflicting harm. Even when they erroneously justify their harm with Christ.

That’s not easy or simple to accept. In fact, it has regularly infuriated me that Christ teaches love even in response to the greatest acts of harm.

I imagine I will never fully master this lesson over the course of my life because I am so fully human in my imperfections.

And there lies the enduring tension: how do I fight for justice while also falling back on God’s divine wisdom, particularly as expressed through Christ’s teachings?

In my heart, I hold two essential truths. The first is that God loves all of us, of course.

But the second is much harder: God actually likes all of us.

God somehow looks at every single one of us in this chaotic world and has the audacity to like us. God wants to be around every single one of us, not solely at our best but even at our worst.

You mean to tell me that God likes that person? And that one? And that other one?

That person who wants to eradicate people like me from the earth? And that person who only expresses vile hatred toward others? And that person who panders to our worst instincts?

Yes, yes, and yes.

God is so powerful and so all-encompassing—beyond the whole collection of our wildest imaginations—that there is enough love and grace and, yes, genuine liking, for every person who has ever existed and every person to come.

I’m saying this because while it does frustrate me to accept that any person, no matter how evil, is automatically loved and liked by God, it also begs the conclusion, at least in my own heart, that God’s promise of light triumphing over dark is inevitable. It is already written.

I know that I serve a great God, and I know that God’s promise is infinitely greater than all the actions taken by all the people for all time. God’s love is infinitely greater than the sum of all humanity’s hatred and always will be.

Of course, for many, that amounts to cold comfort in our current suffering and the suffering to follow. For many, it raises far more questions than answers, and I fully own that may only prompt further frustration from many of you.

I have spent the past week in considerable depression because I know that there will be suffering, not because it has to happen and certainly not because it’s just but because human beings are intrinsically imperfect, and we seem to have reached unprecedented imperfection in recent years.

We are allowed to be sad. We are allowed to be depressed. We are allowed to feel what we feel. We are allowed to recognize vast and cruel imperfection where it exists and do all we can to push back against it.

And we will push back. We will fight the good fight. We will defend the vulnerable and stand beside each other and endure many struggles. And it will be exceedingly hard and painful. No doubt about that.

But I also know how this story ends, even with all the obstacles along the way, and I take comfort in that knowledge.

I take comfort in knowing that light will always overcome every crevice of darkness because God is greater than anything we could possibly imagine.

In the spirit of finding a pathway to healing and resilience, I hope you’ll take comfort in that, too.

I’m standing beside you, and we will get through this.

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