Spiritual editorial: Caring for one another
The election is over, and we breathe a sigh of relief. It has not been pleasant living in a battleground state during this brutal campaign. The whole country needs time to recover.
There are winners and losers, and as I write this before the election, I have no idea who is who. But we are to be gracious winners, good losers, and care for one another, no matter how things turn out.
I now have more empathy for the people who lived in Gettysburg and all Civil War battlefields. When I walk around Gettysburg, I still see evidence of that three-day battle. My heart tries to separate the battle from civilian life, although my mind knows they are forever connected. Buildings still bear the scars. I would like to forget the trauma soldiers and civilians endured, as well as the efforts to care for the injured and dead and begin the massive restoration.
The sheer enormity of the situation could have made people give up. But they cared for their neighbors, friends or foe. No one was up to this impossible task, but everyone did what they could to help.
President Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, challenged the country to move forward saying, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations" ( nps.gov ).
We need to trust God and bind up our nation's wounds and live together in peace.
Scripture provides us with a story of the prophet Elijah and how the impossible happens when we care for others. Years ago, in a land far away, Elijah sought to survive a drought. Meeting a widow gathering firewood, he asked for water and food. She explained, "'Surely as your God lives, I don't have so much as a biscuit. I have a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a bottle; you found me scratching together just enough firewood to make a last meal for my son and me. After we eat it, we'll die.' Elijah said to her, 'Don't worry...Go ahead and do what you've said. But first make a small biscuit for me...Then go ahead and make a meal from what's left for you and your son.
This is the word of the God of Israel: The jar of flour will not run out and the bottle of oil will not become empty before God sends rain on the land and ends this drought.'...She did just as Elijah asked. And it turned out as he said – daily food for her and her family. The jar didn't run out, and the bottle didn't become empty. God's promise fulfilled to the letter exactly as Elijah had delivered it" (1 Kings 17:10-16 selected MSG).
