In Anxious Times: Holding on to the Hope We Create

In 2016 and after, I wrote a series of posts called, "In Troubled Times," about despair, anger, determination, hope, and all the myriad emotions that followed the 2016 election. 

Now, as we await the results of 2020, I have a few thoughts to share. If the muses are with me, I'll be posting more. No matter what the results, we are in for a tough, divisive time. But we're in it together, and together we shall prevail.

First and foremost -- As I took my evening shower on Election Day, I was struck by a moment of light. No matter what happens, we always have within us the power to be beacons of hope for one another. We are not alone. We can lift each other up when despair overcomes us. I keep remembering my father's steadfast hope -- and he lived through a revolution, pogrom, starvation, the Depression, McCarthyism, and more. He never gave up working for a better world -- and neither will we.

Then I read these words from Robert Hubble: 

We must be patient. Biden has a path to victory that does not depend on Pennsylvania with its contested mail ballots. Biden gave a hopeful speech on Tuesday evening and urged us to wait until all votes are counted. Trump, on the other hand, declared victory in the early hours of Wednesday morning but demanded that counting cease. That tells us all we need to know about what the respective campaigns believe about the ultimate result of the election and the will of the American people. Trump is now trying to subvert that will based on a legal theory that says the functioning of the U.S. Constitution should be stopped based on his personal preferences. That's not how the Constitution works, and Trump's claim is ludicrous and meritless.