(Right about now, we’re coming to the end of a between-Presidents period. In a little while, the priorities of the now-former [president] will yield to those of the former former [president]. What we could only imagine will soon fill today’s news. In the meantime, some thoughts….)
Emotionally speaking, these several weeks—from November 6th to January 20th—have been relatively quiet. What has been true in the past has heartened us during the holidays, and what will soon be true is not yet tangible. Post-election emotions may have receded a bit, and pre-Inauguration jitters don’t yet seem completely justified.
This in-between time—God’s people have faced them before—leaves us trying to figure out which parts of the perhaps-unthinkable will blossom into the ominous. No matter how much we might want certainty, the interregnum cannot provide that.
It feels to me like societal magma may be building up under a now-smoldering political volcano. The lid on this geological metaphor may still be in place, but under it may be growing anger, desperation, despondency that could eventually become loud and violent lava.
Even though I can’t completely shake these fears, I know that better, more-helpful thoughts are available to me now and when this time-between-times comes to its end. Memories about the awesome nature of Advent, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Epiphany are still there. A growing cast of wise men/women is cooling down my hot anxiety with their godly reminders about what’s always been true, what will likely happen, what will really last. Hope lingers patiently.
These intervening weeks have been a kind of Sabbath, providing welcome rest and recuperation for what lies ahead. Equipped and refreshed, I think I’m ready for what comes next. In the blogs that follow these next weeks, I hope you’ll find some of that equipping and refreshing translated into encouraging words.
That mindset seems more helpful than searing your screen with screeds that are chock-full with the emotional emulations of erupting volcanoes!
Yes…?
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