Cakes and Sharks

I’ve gotten to the place where it’s hard to remember when things felt normal. When the world felt manageable. We’re in the middle of several things that just seem unimaginable. A war no one wants. And all we’ve been given is the question “Would you rather Iran have a nuclear weapon?”

Gas prices out of control. It was only months ago I saw gas prices under 3 dollars a gallon. Now I see prices approaching and even exceeding 4.50 a gallon. We get told they will come down when the war is over.

Yet we’ve been told hostilities have stopped. We’re now waiting on a deal to be finalized which depending on who speaks is either promising or not close to a deal at all. In fact, they are not negotiating. We are not at war, apparently, but have been told we are preparing to give a strong response to Iran.

We live in a world where Meta (Facebook’s parent organization) recently announced layoffs of thousands of people to allow more money for Artificial Intelligence in a country with no regulations and where the CEOs of AI companies want no regulations, while they compete to be bigger billionaires.

And government officials that confuse presenting a calm, “we’ve got it” demeanor when they don’t have any clue what the average American is dealing with. They claim the stock market is good, though they don’t say that the top 10% of American households own 93% of the stocks. That means fifty-two percent of Americans own the other 7% of the stocks while 38% of Americans have no stock. But things are ok. You’d think the top 10% would have enough money to “buy a vowel” while instead they try and rig the puzzle.

We have multiple No Kings Rallies going on. An autocrat in Hungary was swept out of office in a landslide. Yet the president continues with renovating the White House, demolishing history in the process. He’s excited by the colors. And he tries to sell the idea more after being a mostly unwanted guest at an event that he didn’t host where someone tried to harm him.

He’s more interested in going after perceived enemies and punishing them.

And the president now believes he’s going for political greatness. Uh, right.

Meanwhile congressional representatives seem more invested in keeping a job where they don’t seem to do much and are more focused on the politics of all that than actually serving the people who elected them. Let them eat cake.

This Sunday 252 years ago Marie Antoinette ascended to the throne in France. She never actually said the phrase “let them eat cake” but the meaning of the attribution was clear: I don’t care.

What does it mean to live in a country where the leaders don’t care or care less about whom they serve than themselves? We’re finding out.

I just keep thinking about the toll this is having on all of us. I was listening to Ana Navarro on The View this morning and she was talking about being in Miami riding in Ubers who voted for the president who now thinks he’s crazy.

The erosion of trust has led to a race to the bottom. The current administration has done its best job in eroding trust in their opponents and now themselves. It’s what they do well.

And the acceleration in the last year and a half has been extraordinary. We may be able to attribute some of it to the age of the president, which is both wrong and will affect others of his age who may be in better shape. But that may mitigate some of the erosion. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next president isn’t in their 40’s or 50’s.

But the level of trust that has been broken is spreading. I believe we are going to see more violence, more animosity, and more organized resistance. I’m really praying for the latter. The problem with the latter is that it will take time, which I fear we all feel like we’re running out time. I think this happens when what feels like insanity never lets up.

And even if it does let up, the residual effects won’t be gone for a while.

I saw this in congregations. When there has been destruction in a congregation from misconduct, abuse, or negligence, it stays in the congregational system. People remember and react against anything that feels or echoes similarly. I think we’re going to see that as well.

One solution to all of this for congregations is to have a series of quiet, dependable ministers who simply do the basics of ministry well. By example, I am reminded of the education advice I got early on in teaching. “It takes 4 positives to overcome a negative thing you say as a teacher.” In more severely damaged places, four would be a low number.

The problem becomes that would be 16 years minimum.

Though if we look at US history, we see that after the Great Depression we elected the same president 4 times. Then his vice-president. Then a general who was courted by both parties.

Then a young president, who was assassinated. Then a war that no one liked, a president who wanted to be an autocrat and had to be pardoned.

But then the US was never expected to succeed as a democracy. Outside observers thought it was over when Jefferson defeated Adams in 1800. Somehow, we survived.

We’ve survived four presidents being assassinated. Lincoln was assassinated for emancipating slaves. Garfield was assassinated by a man with mental health issues who thought he should have been hired by the president. McKinley was assassinated for being seen as a symbol of corporate oppression. Kennedy’s assassination is less clear as some thought the assassin had communist leanings while others say he was mad at Kennedy over Cuba.

We’ve survived Nixon and Harding and Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew Jackson. They join the current president as being the list as most corrupt.

But I also think we need to think beyond survival. We’re just shy of 20% of all presidents being assassinated or corrupt.

If this were a congregation’s history, they’d dwindle. They’d likely go without a minister and do it themselves. Probably until the congregation died or decided to do things completely differently.

But sometimes it takes hitting bottom or seeing the bottom before you decide not to drown.

At some point we will stop trying to not drown, not tread water, and just swim. But what will it take for us all, and not just the few, to enjoy the beach? Especially when it feels like the sharks are circling all the time and we’re the ones bleeding.

Now it’s time to figure out how we heal. Otherwise, we’ll just rinse it off and repeat.

It reminds me of my favorite quote, “Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.” Let’s think about how we can stop the insanity. Both the big things and the little things. Because it will take both.