Creation Care Mom

Hello friends,

I know I missed writing last week, and am writing late today for publication immediately instead of my usual planning ahead. Sometimes life as a mother means less time for your own pursuits, and sometimes it just means less mental energy/capacity.

But I have also been struggling with how to write this post. I’ve wrestled my thoughts, my emotions and my perceptions. I’ve sat in the mucky feelings and tried to come around to hope. Not everyone will agree or like what I’m about to say. Some of you may never read my work again. I’ll live with it.

Onward.

In the middle of March, the presidential primaries essentially came to an end. Both Biden and Trump secured enough delegates to become their respective party’s nominee. Barring anything changing in the next 7 months that removes them from running, such as, death, injury or illness, Supreme court removal, or jail time. For me, and many others this feels like a lose-lose rematch.

I was raised very much Republican in semi-rural Montana, but as I have grown and seen more of the world, in addition, to seeing the Republican party grow more extreme, I have found myself out of sorts with many of the policies they are supporting.

But the Trump era brought extremism that I hadn’t seen before. He brought hate, anger, and retribution. He fed fear and tried to turn reality on its head with lies. Experts became nobodies and nobodies became “experts”. He used cloak and dagger methods to create uncertainty and redirect. He will bring all of this and more to another 4 years as president. And in it all he claimed Christianity.

The AUDACITY. At its heart, Christians are supposed to be little Christs. Imitating our Savior to the best of our human capabilities. And what qualities should be our fruit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These qualities should not only reside in our hearts but overflow out of us into and onto others. To claim Christianity and to spew hate, fear, anger and lies is hypocrisy, one of the most despised sins in the church. And YET, until Trump was promoting Bibles last week, I felt the church had been generally silent at best, and supportive at worst.

Over the last several years, I have been wrestling with talking to Christians who believe the election was “stolen” and truly want Trump to return to office. People willing to turn a blind eye to his many criminal charges because his policies will align with the Republican agenda. Policy over integrity. And it sickens me.

Though I have no great love for Biden, especially with the way he is handling the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I truly believe that our nation will come out of 4 more years with him in office, marginally better, or at least not worse. He hasn’t been able to bridge the divide and gain bipartisan support for much, but at least his leadership doesn’t seem to be dividing us further. You can say he didn’t get this done or that done, but remember that Congress is the one writing the laws. If they can’t get the bill to him, he can’t pass it. With Trump, I expect to see more divisiveness, more riots, more hostility with four more years. I expect mostly to see anti-Biden everything, including attempting repealing legislation that has positive impacts. I anticipate his suggestions to promote business will result in greater pollution and waste.

My son isn’t even 2 yet. So I must vote as his voice as well as my own. The world I want him to grow up in no longer looks like the direction that Republican leadership is taking us. I will continue to instill in him values of family, integrity, honor, and respect, I will teach him the Fruit of the Holy Spirit, and he will learn to value life, both human and nature. When he is old enough to vote, I hope there is a party that he feels he can support.

This may not have felt like a Creation Care Mom post. And it’s true that it wasn’t my traditional material. With the emotionally charged state of American politics right now, handling creation care issues politically these days almost always comes down to party lines. Healing looks like bipartisanship, not divisiveness. Our ability to care for creation is tied to our ability to work with others, even others who our different from ourselves.

Only time will tell which trajectory we’re on.