After all these years, you’d think I know a lot. All my life experiences, all the training, all the reading and writing, all the interactions with people in the know—you’d think that would give me a leg up on this “knowing” thing.
I’ve wished for some assurance about what’s true right now, but too many of the polls, algorithms, pundits and editorials aren’t reliable. There’s too much to know, and it all changes too fast. The straight-faced lies of our president clog my brain and high emotion feeds my confirmation bias about what’s actually happening. What I can depend on.
That’s what knowing is supposed to do—anchor my hopes and dispel my fears. Calm me down. Perhaps a bit far-fetched to expect, though. Even with predictive AI, massive data-gathering and -sorting and the lessons of past elections available at every click of the mouse or TV remote—even then, the chaos of not-knowing seems overwhelming. Facing perhaps the greatest need for certain knowledge in my life, I have to admit: I really don’t know what’s actually going on, or what’s coming this way.
That’s not the whole story, though. There are things that I do know. For certain. Lasting parts of life, big things that I can depend on. More certain truths because they underlie the rest of life. You know them, too: Trust in God’s care, God’s love, God’s power, God’s certain punishment of evil. Faith that God will rescue this nation. Love and empathy for others. The comfort of forgiveness. The relentless power of purpose shared among God’s people.
Turns out that what I do know is more important, more reassuring than what I don’t know! I’m going to depend on those things.
And my vote will help seal the truth of that knowledge!
