Deliver us from evil, forever and ever amen
That prayer from the church resonated in my spirit as I hiked through the hills and valleys, the canyons and the trees yesterday afternoon, giving thanks.
The whole prayer is as follows: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”
Donald Trump and his minions, Steve Miller, Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon and the like, were the evil I had in mind as I was giving thanks for over 80 million Americans who shared my heartfelt beliefs. It has been a long four years of sleeplessness and anxiety of what new horror he would next let loose upon the world and ceaseless struggle to prevent the worst of it.
And yet I thought 74 million Americans saw things very differently and may live with same dread of what the next four years of the Biden Presidency hold in store for them. I certainly wish them no evil; some are friends, family and acquaintances. To them, Trump spoke their truths and provided a fierce, unflinching advocacy for their beliefs.
Biden is acquitting himself as the healer and empathetic individual he is to the depths of his being. He will need all of our support to succeed in healing this nation from the past four years of lies, cruelty, vicious racism and callousness.
Part of the healing will be in the Biden team’s leadership on the Covid pandemic and economic harm many have suffered; that will be the easier part. But another deeper part of healing is to address the divisiveness and hatred that has been let loose in the land and fanned and fostered by Trump. Our national psyche is badly torn and needs presidential pastoring. Trump may personify evil for many of us, but he is merely symptomatic of far deeper national distress that has been exposed for all of us to see – a raw and festering wound no longer papered over and hidden from our sight. Some is rooted in racism and discrimination on the basis of national origin; others in social and economic disadvantage; some is rooted in religious and cultural differences; some is rooted in the decline of neighborhood, of opportunity and a way of life, and others in history and heritage.
At its best, a President is for four years a personification of a nation’s best hopes and dreams, not of its fears and nightmares. Let us come quickly to understand that it is all of our civic and spiritual responsibility now to move towards unifying our nation and addressing its wounds as we also move to restore our economic and social progress and the nation’s health. This does not require anyone to give up their core beliefs or deeply held principles; it does require all to see and accept each other as an important part of the nation’s fabric, to listen, to debate and to compromise with each other. No more lying, no more demonization, no more enemies of the people.
Lucien Wulsin
11/27/20