I’ve been waiting for the right words (at least ones righter than my first impression) to respond intelligently to the recent presidential debate and the nuclear fallout since. If I only get one word, “pitiful” comes to mind.
Russell Moore did much better:
“When we ask, ‘Is this the best we can do?’ we actually all know the answer. But neither man will step away, and there are no grownups that can make them.
“This would be bad enough if it were only about which octogenarian will be occupying the only assisted living center in the world with a press office and a Situation Room. But the fact that our elderly leaders—one struggling to put sentences together, the other ranting with insanities and profanities—won’t leave the scene is about more than an election year. It’s about what it means to live in an era of diminished expectations…
“At this point, though, our culture seems especially riddled through with this realization that those we thought were grownups are old, exhausted, and childish. An obviously declining president refuses to live in a world where “Hail to the Chief” is played for a new generation of leaders. The rest of the country looks to a porn-star-chasing former reality television host who says he wants to terminate the Constitution and put his enemies through televised military tribunals—and the country just laughs and enjoys the show.”
In times of disappointment and disillusionment I usually do my best to laugh rather than be resigned to crying all the time. Nevertheless, I can seem to muster neither tears nor neary a chuckle over the sorry state of American politics these days. I do, however, have a hope-filled lament plus a benediction.
For the lament I’ll just use the words of the poets of Scripture if you don’t mind:
•I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes.
•I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.
•My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught.
•How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?
•My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death assail me.
•Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction. (Assorted Psalms)
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.
barney wiget 