Hope in the Aftermath

This is supposed to be a blog about educational leadership, but I lead out of who I am, and the person I am is in grief. I need a place to process how to lead others in this world where fear, misunderstanding, and hatred separate us. I am not living in America, but I find myself in the position of being asked to explain America to others, including the students and teachers at my school holding passports from all over the world, as well as to my confused Japanese neighbors.

First off, I have no explanation to offer, only questions and observations. I don’t have the historical, sociological, philosophical or theological background to provide some detailed analysis of the America political process. But this week, I read the posts of my daughters and my nieces, at a loss for the words to explain to their children and the people around them about what happened in America. I have received messages from former students, some who are now teachers themselves, asking: How do I talk to my students about this? How do I talk to my friends who are: conservative, minority, Muslim, LGBT–fill in the blank–who think Christians and Trump are the same thing? My children-through-education are at a loss as to whether or not what I taught them years ago is really true. I told them that Alan Paton had it right in his great novel, Cry the Beloved Country, when Msimangu states, “There is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power” (37). It doesn’t feel like love won this week–but there is still another week ahead of us.

Having worked with children and teenagers and those who teach them for many years now, I know we have to take the long view. We occupy one point on a timeline stretching beyond what we can see. On that dot located in our classrooms, those young people we teach may be contentious, depressed, struggling, or defiant. Yet when we stick around long enough and creep down that timeline, those same young adults are raising families, teaching other contentious children, writing thoughtful prose, being ethical business men and women, healing, feeding, teaching, and trying to make a difference in the corner of the world they occupy.

I’ve seen the slow and powerful changes that happen over time, and I have to make the choice to live with hope. This week I feel let down by democracy. People made choices, as they are allowed and encouraged to do, and I am struggling to understand the choices they made. In his book, Good News about Injustice: A witness of Courage in a Hurting World, Gary Haugen writes, “When falling into the well of doubt about why God permits injustice on the earth, I scrape my way out by standing first on the limits of my human knowledge. I grab on to the character of the compassionate God revealed on the cross. I step up to the mysterious foothold offered by the terrible gift of free will, and lunge up to the dusty ground onto the hope of eternity. Brushing myself off, I finally get to my feet and face the task before me…” (118). I am trying to follow his example.

I know I cannot do the job God gives me to do without the power of community, yet ironically, according to Henri Nouwen, “Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives.” Our communities are more complete when they allow room for people who think in ways that are different than the way we think, and I need to understand people who thought it was OK to tolerate Donald Trump’s racism, misogyny, and bullying for some higher cause. Right now I am having trouble grasping that higher cause, but if I only see these people as caricatures then I build a wall within my community.

I know that there are so many issues to be concerned about in our broken world, and that each of us has certain ways we prioritize the issues we care deeply about. Nevertheless, I hope each of us is able to make a choice to see people even more clearly than we see party platforms. Scripture is vague about so many problems we face in the 21st century, but it is unambiguous about the fact that we are called to care for single mothers, children, refugees, prisoners, and the poor (James 1:27; Isaiah 58:7, 61:1; Deuteronomy 24:15; Zechariah 7:10; Luke 11:41 among many references). I am limited in the ways I can be involved in the branches of government operating in the US, especially living far away from the centers of power. Social media seemed like a way to share a voice, but it has ended up magnifying misunderstanding and providing more fuel to arguments.

So I come back to my role as a school leader. I can continue to provide opportunities for students to learn that building bridges is far more powerful than building walls. I can expose them to the problems in the world while equipping them with problem-solving strategies. I can give them chances to value language as a tool to bring reconciliation and give hope. I can teach them to look for evidence. I can help them apply the words of Jesus to whatever they are learning and doing, so that they understand that following Him is far more than a political agenda. I can encourage teachers to help their students reflect about their choices, their progress, and their goals to help them become lifelong learners who will make well-informed decisions. I can also provide safe havens for people, young and old, who feel vulnerable, separated, and lost. I can love those who are different from me.

I do not mean to imply that people who voted differently from me do not have these same goals and intentions, but there is much to attend to right now. Women, minorities, immigrants, refugees – those we are commanded to care for – are living in fear. It seems like the rest of us are at odds with each other. But I choose to live with hope, that “thing with feathers,” fragile, elusive, but oh so beautiful. I live with hope because this timeline speck is not the whole package. I live with hope because “though the wrong is oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” I live with hope because as Anne Lamott says, “In the long haul, grace will win out over everything” but we just aren’t there yet.