The Morning After

November 6, 2024

It’s a beautiful day in DC, sunbeams filtering through starbursts of leaves against clear blue sky; my fall flowers glimmer in the front yard, birds chirp cheerfully in the trees. It’s all so normal and lovely—a stark contrast from the funereal mood of the city.

A friend whose husband is traveling, like mine is, slept over, and in the morning our kids tumble around the house blissfully unaware, running up to the trampoline to jump, chasing the cat. It will be time to get them out the door to school soon, after serving them all breakfast, getting teeth brushed, shoes on—same hustle as usual. Today all this small picture just feels weird, since nothing in the big picture landscape feels normal at all.

We put the kids to bed, then stayed up talking, eventually deciding together to forego watching returns or checking our phones. We didn’t want to fall into the roller coaster anxiety spiral, making meaning of every incremental piece of data, accumulating dread at every bad sign. Then I woke up at 4 AM, heart beating wildly, as if from a bad dream—waking to a bad dream. I won’t pretend I felt anything other than anxiety and fear when I first saw the news. I prayed, read briefly, returned to prayer, slept fitfully.

At 6 AM when I woke up the second time it was a done deal, anxiety and fear strong as ever. I padded downstairs before the kids could wake up and did what I regularly do: made my coffee, sat down in silence, and began to pray through morning prayer, a form used by followers of Jesus around the world, holding the lectionary—a set of scripture readings chosen in advance for each day, because it’s their turn, not as a commentary on current events. As I read through the familiar words, even though I wanted to zip through them, to reach the end of speaking and just sit in my emotion before God, I found I was held.

Morning prayer opens with a reminder of the order of things on a cosmic scale, taken from an obscure prophet: The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silent before him. Habakkuk 2:20.

From this silence we are invited to confession: “We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts . . . we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we out not to have done.” The familiar words offer an open invitation, waiting to be filled with whatever specifics the silence calls forth. Today I feel a surprising urge: I need to confess corporately.

I am part of overlapping layers of communities who have left many grievous things done which we ought to have done, and have done things we ought not to have done. I repent most acutely, for the decision we had taken the day before, as a nation. For becoming the kind of people who can make such a decision. For so many points in the history leading up to this night—a long spiral once you start to unwind it. I feel weird confessing this way. It is uncomfortable to repent for a decision I voted against. Perhaps there’s something important in choosing not to set myself apart as other than the collective, but my reaction in the moment is simpler: I just can’t not speak these words of confession over the events of the night. The first tears come.

Then, to the Psalms: “In my trouble I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God for help . . . .He delivered me from my strongest enemy, and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me.”  Psalm 18, as many other Psalms could have, reminds me God’s people have a long history of complaining to God about the feeling of being overtaken by an enemy who seems insurmountable, only to find rest in the promises and character of God. I can do the same.

Then, to the chronicle of the past rulers of Israel found in Kings, where the lectionary has been parked for the past month or two. These old stories remind me that God is no stranger to bad rulers, rulers who abuse power, who seem to live large while perpetuating injustice, who seem to mock God. But God will not be mocked. In story after story, each bad ruler is brought low, to become a blip in Israel’s history. God will ultimately hold accountable those with power, will deal justly with those who abuse it. I rest in this, even when human accountability, which I long for and work for, fails.

I finish the prayers, I sit in silence, I offer my sorrow, I invite God’s presence.

Soon I will get up and feed myself, and feed the people who depend on me. I will hug a friend, check in on people. I will tend a living thing, seeking to cultivate beauty, on my front porch, in my children, on a blank page, in my community. I will run, giving the built-up cortisol in my body the place to go it was intended for. When the tears come, I will let them; when my daughter or my friend bring tears, I will hold them. Maybe I’ll nap. I will make soup and set a big table. I will gather people in prayer. I will return to silence in God’s presence.

I will keep doing this, again and again.

In this silence, I will continue seeking to be transformed into a person through whom God can accomplish His redeeming work.

In this silence, I will continue seeking to discern what God invites me to each day, what role is mine to carry.

In this silence, I will keep trying to say yes to that, again and again and again.