I'm Not Disappointed

On "both sides" and President Lincoln and Dr. King

Today’s post is longer than usual, but I urge you to read it. It isn’t a quick take — and I worked on it for days before sharing it with you. This is probably the sixth or seventh version!

People keep telling me that I’m “just disappointed about the election.” I’m not just disappointed. I’m something else…something taught by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King.

Read on about the dangers of misdiagnosed disappointment, both sides, and the dream of justice.

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Scroll to the end of the newsletter for information about the upcoming Advent series — and what free and paid subscribers can expect in December.

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I’m going to say something straight up about recent events that may shock you: I’m not “disappointed.”

In the last week, several people have remarked on “disappointment” regarding the election. A store clerk and a bank teller both mentioned to me about working through their disappointment about the election. Several friends have said that they are disappointed by their fellow citizens or family members. Pundits talking about how this was a “no win” election for a deeply divided nation because, in the end, almost half of the voters (some 75 to 80 million people) would be disappointed by the results. More than one clergy friend or church leader has ruminated with me about emotional division in their congregations. Many parishioners are disappointed, others elated.

The general tenor of these observations was the same — there was bound to be a lot of disappointment no matter what happened last week.

Disappointment is typically understood to be a personal experience. We human beings feel bewildered, angry, and bitter when we experience setbacks or when we encounter events contrary to our expectations.

Expectation is the root of all heartache.

— Conventional wisdom

The overall therapeutic advice for dealing with disappointment? Recognize and work through the complexity of your feelings. But don’t wallow in disappointment. It can quickly turn into depression, chronic stress, and anxiety disorders — all can be emotional triggers for physical disease. Get support. Engage in some helpful practices. Then get on with your life, hopefully with a bit more resilience and wisdom.

I’ve known political disappointment ever since I lost the eleventh grade election for student body class secretary. A pom-pom girl won. I’m still bitter. I’ve been part of dozens of losing campaigns — as a Republican and as a Democrat — on every level of American politics. I know what it is like when one hopes, expects, and works to win — and then loses.

I genuinely understand being disappointed by an election and how to manage that disappointment.

If you lose, you have a good yell, down a stiff drink, and cry. You reflect on what you might have done differently. You brush yourself off and start fighting again.

I’m not experiencing disappointment now. For months — years even — I’ve been aware of the spread of Christian nationalism, authoritarianism, and fascism. I’ve watched propaganda swamp expertise, facts, and truth. I’ve come to understand the intransigence of racism and the cultural anger against women. And I’ve fretted over the replacement of common good with political nihilism.

If the old adage “expectation is the root of all heartache” is correct, it is fair to say that I expected (in some measure at least) that the election could turn out badly. I’d hoped and worked for different, but I anticipated other worrisome possibilities.

Thus, I’m not disappointed. At least not in a textbook sort of therapeutic sense.

I am, however, deeply disturbed by what could be a kind of American collapse — the purposeful dismantling of familiar and needed institutions that guard our safety and wellbeing, the willful destruction of important aspects of civil government, the further empowerment of oligarchs and elites, and the misery and suffering that is surely coming for millions of people who live in this nation.

Disappointed? Trust me, I’m good at disappointment.

I’m devastated. I’m deeply disturbed by the coming dangers. I’m edging toward despair.

I wish I was disappointed.

Thinking of this moment as “disappointment” for one group and happiness for another is a gentle, even hopeful, form of both sides-ism. That there are two sides — somebody would win, somebody would lose. It will all balance out. And life goes on. Nothing has fundamentally changed. You’ll get over it.

“Disappointment” is cover for something far deeper: denial of the danger that has surrounded us for years — and its escalation just ahead.

Seeing this as disappointment is a mistake.

* * * * * *

Last Saturday, a friend invited me to participate in a “meditative walk for democracy.” She’s devastated, too. So, she rounded up a few people to meet up at the Lincoln Memorial and walk around the Reflecting Pool and, well, reflect. She thought it would help.

The Lincoln Memorial is one of the most beautiful places in Washington — this temple to democracy where Mr. Lincoln sits forever overseeing the nation he saved.

I wasn’t able to join the walk. Instead, I re-read Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. There are two Lincoln speeches engraved on the marble walls of his memorial — the more familiar Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural.

Delivered on March 4, 1865, only a few weeks before the end of the Civil War and his assassination, these words stand as a masterwork of transcendent American political discourse. Not only do they address an historical moment — when more than 600,000 have been killed, scores of towns are in ruins, and landscapes forever altered — but they speak theologically on the meaning of disappointment, devastation, and despair. Some American religion historians — like myself — have referred to the Second Inaugural as President Lincoln’s greatest sermon.

Don’t let the extended block quote and nineteenth century language dissuade you — read it. Please.

“Fellow countrymen: at this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper…

“On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place devoted altogether to saving the Union without war insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

"One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves not distributed generally over the union but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war.

To strengthen perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other.

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered — that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him.

Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

"With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

The most often quoted section of the speech are these sentences:

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained…Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other…The prayers of both could not be answered — that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes….With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds.

Wait…what? Is Lincoln saying that half the nation was bound to be disappointed? That the losers would have to get over it and the winners should get on with the work? Was Lincoln the presidential master of “both sides” theology?

The take-away from the Second Inaugural is not that both sides had, in effect, an understanding that their cause was sacred. Lincoln certainly sympathized. He recognized, entirely paradoxically, that “both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other.”

Frankly, that sounds a lot like what just happened among Christians in the United States.

And that’s why pastors in so-called “purple” churches and denominations tried to keep their congregations together by emphasizing things like preaching and praying instead of anything that might be construed politically — to focus on the “same God” might have been a way through. See Mr. Lincoln knew — both sides, a winning one and a disappointed one…but one God.

But this isn’t a both sides speech. It only reads that way if one ignores the larger ethical and moral issue — that of the enslaved people who were freed by the war. Yes, Lincoln tackled the paradox of “both sides.” And, at the very same time, he clearly said that one side was right and the other side was wrong.

He stated up front that slavery was the cause of the war. He called it an “offense” that resulted from human sin. He literally called for reparations for the formerly enslaved. And he warned that God’s judgment on a nation that had for so long allowed this abomination to go on might not yet be over.

If we understand that this is a speech about justice, then we can understand this line: It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not that we be not judged.

That’s theological sarcasm. The words about not judging actually drip with judgment.

Lincoln faced a reunifying nation where half were bitterly disappointed, devastated really, by the turn of events. The other half was jubilant. And what did he do? While affirming both sides in a skillful pastoral way, he pointed to the undeniable justice of God. He combined being a pastor to a broken nation with being a prophet for a better world.

In doing so, he demonstrated that the pastoral work of binding wounds and healing communities never takes place separate from the call for justice.

And it should cause all of us to wonder: Do we really read the same Bible and pray to the same God? Do we? Really?

“Both sides” is certainly bad theology. And it might just be a delusion. If, of course, one sees the truth of injustice.

* * * * * *

Ultimately, that’s why I’m not disappointed. That’s like saying President Lincoln was disappointed that 600,000 Americans were killed by other Americans.

That would be like thinking the prophet Jeremiah was just disappointed when lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem.

Rembrandt’s 1630 painting “Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem.” This is one of my favorite paintings.

I’m not upset that my expectations or hopes about an election weren’t met. Or that something upsetting happened. Or that I’ve experienced a setback.

This isn’t about me.

I’m devastated that the door is now wide open in American political life — for a generation or more into the future — to profound and systemic injustice. There will be a reversal of human rights, an erosion of safety for millions of people (and, sadly, including the nations we influence around the world), the rejection of basic principles of the law, and an increasing enslavement of democracy to oligarchs and billionaires.

That’s what Christian nationalists want. That’s Project 2025. They weren’t kidding.

And all the cabinet picks and staffing announcements this week prove that the Jeremiahs among us were right in advance — and what might be left will be lament in the coming rubble.

I’m angry that white Christians — all of them, evangelical, Catholic, and mainline — voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump and that very future. Because why? Well, evangelicals want and believe it. This stuff has long been their agenda. But Catholics? Because Pope Francis said both choices were equally as flawed?

And mainliners? Because mainliners are terrified of losing members in dividing and declining denominations. Because both sides. Mainliners love both sides.

There are so many reasons not to speak truth.

If Christians only bind up disappointment without preaching justice, if we only heal wounds of division without recognizing the moral offense, then we have failed.

Indeed, we have a historical example of this. White Southerners didn’t much like Lincoln’s speech. They did, however, like the bits about “both sides.” They took part — the remarks about the same God and do not judge — and specifically rejected Lincoln’s clarity on the injustice of enslavement. From half of this speech, they would go on and create their own vision of ethics, a different history of slavery — a new “religion” they called the Lost Cause.

That’s what you get when you preach both sides without justice. A version of faith that is far — very far — from the God of the Bible, the friend of the oppressed, the defender of the poor.

* * * * * *

A century after the Second Inaugural, a Black preacher would stand in front of Mr. Lincoln at the Reflecting Pool and preach about a dream with inspiring, theologically-informed poetic words:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today…

I have a dream that one day…little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

More both sides at the Lincoln Memorial? Both sides of racism? After all, both sides read the same Bible and pray to the same God. Maybe all we can do is dream our way out of disappointment?

The leaders of the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial.

The dream part of the speech may be the most quoted (especially by white Americans), but the context of Martin Luther King’s entire speech is prophetic justice:

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.

There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

It was this unwavering proclamation of justice, with its honest assessment of history and the political moment, that would lead King to insist “With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.”

* * * * * *

Maybe 2024 is not an end, but a beginning.

I don’t know.

We can dream. But only if we are honest. Only if we tell the whole truth.

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INSPIRATION

Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities.  Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving.  Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or is still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion.  Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear.  Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us.  Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism.  Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
— T.S. Eliot, from “Gerontion”

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ADVENT IS COMING!

The Advent theme this year is: Advent, the Season of Justice and Joy?

Sunday Musings will focus on the theme. As always, Sunday Musings are open to the entire Cottage community.

For paid subscribers at the Cottage — there will be a special online event at the beginning of December with THREE special guests (more on this soon - I promise you will be surprised!). And, I’m also planning to do a Cottage Advent calendar this year with daily bits of inspiration for the season. You’ll get a “window” to open each day on justice and joy — I hope it will speak to your soul and strengthen you for the journey ahead.

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