President Obama spoke to the nation on November 8th saying that whatever happens, the sun will rise in the morning. I got up that morning and it was raining, I could hardly hear my wife at breakfast for the deafening noise from tree work nearby and I learned that Trump had become president elect. Even President Obama, whom I deeply admire, doesn’t get it right all the time. I could tell I was not going to have good day.
I was saddened along with the half of America that felt Secretary Clinton would be the wiser choice. The race was over and the people had spoken and we will return to our lives. Will we be any wiser for it? Time will tell.
In what first seemed an unrelated set of circumstances, I was asked by Spy editor, Dave Wheelan, to arrange a telephone interview with Krista Tippett. Tippett, an award winning public radio host, is scheduled to appear at the Avalon Theatre in Easton on November 17. She will interview tech entrepreneur Anil Dash, an advocate and writer who works to make technology and the tech industry more humane, inclusive and ethical.
Tippett’s world-acclaimed radio and pod broadcast “On Being” is familiar to many. A professional journalist, she facilitates discussions involving ethics, morals, meaning and spirituality with renowned scientists, theologians, artists, poets and teachers. Her guests have included the Dalai Llama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the poet Mary Oliver. I arranged a telephone conversation with Tippett for November 7th, the day before the election results were known. I was then uneasy, but cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the election.
The subject of the election came up and we discussed the disturbing presidential campaign that America’s been experiencing for the last 18 months. Is there something about its peculiarly vicious character that has a message for us about who we are, or the election process itself? Yes, we concurred.
Tippett commented about how the twenty-four hour proliferation of information through TV and other electronics has grown increasingly more aggressive. It’s been tawdry at times, belittling of others and hostile. However offensive Americans found this, it does suggest that bad news, personal slanders, salacious and prurient attacks do titillate us enough to demand our attention. One ugly comment tweeted and picked up by millions or forwarded to hundreds more through Facebook, is instantly available to us at any time. The cellphone rings and the news, rather than informing us about domestic or foreign policy, is like reading a tabloid. In short, little of what we were exposed to was inspirational or uplifting. It was a street fight.
It suggests to me that the modern miracle of instant communication, with all its benefits, appeals to our least noble instincts while feeding them regularly. The assaults that candidates leveled regularly at one another are the stuff of popular novels, TV mini-dramas and tabloids which typically draw large numbers of viewers and readers: There was intimidation, treachery, salacious sex, intrigue, dark secrets, thievery, financial chicanery, abuse of power and lying. Love stories, which make the world go around, were conspicuously absent. All of this, 24/7, at the press of a button. Compared to the latest dirt, most of us find policy discussions boring.
As mindless as instant communication can leave us, it can also be the instrument of hope and inspiration. I believe Krista Tippett’s informed broadcasts do that for large numbers of people in the country who are disillusioned with superficiality and banality. This population is looking for a spirituality that is uplifting and edifying. We long for substance. I had my own experience with this recently shortly after the election results were finalized.
I meet every other week with a small group. We meditate together and then process the matters of our hearts. We speak from the heart. We met the Thursday following the election results. We were disappointed, but also confused about the campaign and the results. Each of us was trying to make sense of what had happened without falling into the trap of faultfinding that had been so characteristic of the campaign.
In researching some of Tippett’s work I found a tweet she received shortly after the election. It read: “ . . . this is so hard. I’m terrified for my son, my family, and my friends. I’m supposed to be a faith leader and yet I am paralyzed. Help.”
Tippett writes back: “This morning pondering a 21st century calling, for those of us who can, to be calmers of fear. Just that. As a start.”
She writes elsewhere about our present state: “This political moment was never about politics; it’s about the human condition. It’s forcing us /calling us to work on that.”
The presidential campaign of 2016 does beg a deeper question other than who won or lost: is the problem about flawed candidates or is it about America’s spiritual poverty?
It’s hard to think clearly on the mourning after.
Krista Tippett will be live onstage at the Avalon Theatre on Thursday, November 17 at 7:00 pm. She will interview tech entrepreneur Anil Dash on the topic of civility in technology. Tickets are $15 at dockstreetfoundation.org. The event is presented by the Aspen Wye Fellows and Dock Street Foundation.
Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.
Sheila Nimm says
I am truly sorry others suffer fear at the election result, but, there has been a silent suffering over the last eight years that has been willfully and woefully ignored. The victims of Obamacare exist as surely as those who have benefited, difference being that the those that benefited paid substantially less for the privilege. Many average hard working families have had their net worth drained by ever increasing premiums and higher deductibles making it impossible to avail yourself of the services you were overpaying for. Anyone who expressed their dissatisfaction were called racist, uneducated and dare I say the word which drips with disdain from the lips of the President a “Republican”. Many have felt marginalized by the powers that be in Washington as they ignored and penalized the very citizen who quietly go about the business of making the country work. This is a kind and generous country with an inherent sense of fairness. Fairness to the average Joe never entered the equation and the result is an unappreciated populous stood up to take their dignity back…and yes the messenger is not one we expected. Trump was the only one standing up for us.
Carol Voyles says
I understand your feelings, Sheila. We must alleviate our suffering. But while emotional appeals are seductive, fairness implies rational thinking and a chance of solving problems. Our middle class has been left behind for decades, not just 8 years. Yes, some “victims” of Obamacare will see their premiums rise as much as 25 percent, but how quickly we’ve forgotten they were up 74 percent during the Bush administration.
Since the inception of the Republican Revolution, we have been systematically misled by a party that is putting ideology before solving problems. They won’t be telling us our savings would have grown 3 times more had we invested only during Democratic administrations, or that Republicans with the advantage of legislative majorities have handed us not only “deficits that don’t matter,” but our Great Depression, the Savings and Loan Crisis, and our Great Recession.
We’ve created more jobs, wages have gone up, and we’ve reduced budget deficits whenever a Democrat has been in charge. Maybe too slowly; but without help from Congress, we are at least moving in the right direction. And who would guess that our “big” government, in spite of Obama’s “socialist” policies, is spending less as a percentage of our economy than all but 2 other industrialized nations – and less in inflation-adjusted dollars than during the Reagan administration?
Yes, we have problems, and they stem in large part from putting ideology ahead of solving problems and having the the highest level of income disparity among industrialized nations. Virtually no one is claiming the tax cuts President-elect Trump is proposing (“the largest ever” for our wealthiest citizens) will solve our problems.
Let’s just hope we get through this, united and in peace, not pieces. And thank you for your insights, George. Your words are both disturbing and comforting.
George Merrill says
I thought you made your case with thoughtfulness and dignity. I can only but respect that.