I describe despondency as “exhausted sadness.” It’s the best way I can describe the way I feel right now. Do you feel the same way? When some people feel such sadness, they drink, eat, or cry. I write. But I don’t want to write from an ego-centric perspective. I want to write from a place of a shared experience, as I think many of us are there.

I wish I could say that my despondency radiates only from one source, the election. But it is much bigger than that. It is the same feeling you would get watching an Instagram clip of a train hitting a school bus, but in very slow motion. Helpless. Yet, the precious children waving and smiling not knowing what is to come. But I have been feeling that way for a couple of decades as we watch the idea of reason and truth erode from our culture under the auspicious of postmodernism. Me speaking in favor of the bedrock of factual truth that was so hunted during the Enlightenment.

I was feeling sad even before the election. I have just lost my last good friend. A good man. It was because of the things I write here and the same thoughts I carry with me. Religion is usually about conformity, not searching for the truth. I’m a nonconformist and that was a bridge too far for him. It is a big loss and a shame.

Then, there was the election. It was different this time from 2016. While then, it was depressing, it was also a cultural fluke. This time most of American voters have drank the Trumpism Kool Aid. At the core of Trumpism, it is a cult, I have no doubt. I was in a cult once and I recognize the pattern. Everyone is lying to you, except the great leader. I take some solace in the possible fact that more than half of the Trump voters, did so, not because they were in the MAGA cult, but because they honestly thought he would be good for the country.

Donald Trump has also robbed me of many of my old evangelical friends, including the friendship of my boyhood family. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to sit with them for hours and talk about the old days. I know these people well enough to understand that they are intelligent and have good hearts. I wish we could talk as friends about the modern world, but now, all those old friends are empowered. The election has given them the proof that they are right and us dissenters are the idiots, the immoral, the haters (of Trump). In their eyes, I only have the choice of coming into their herd, their subculture.

Here is what is odd. People tell me I’m strange, say strange and write strange things and believe even stranger. But I am in almost total agreement with Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of Christian theologians. I’m in agreement with C.S. Lewis, the greatest of Christian apologists. I’m in almost total agreement with Francis Schaeffer, the greatest Christian philosopher of the twentieth century, yet none of these men were perfect. But somehow, I am seen as unorthodox, leading them to conclude that my relationship with God is no good. That’s how I lost my last friend.

But, I’ve said to myself, that I’m such a lover of truth (again, meaning that which is consistent with reality), that if I was the last non-Trumper, the last believer in factual truth, I would rather live the rest of my short life totally friendless, than to fill my head with myth, conspiracy theories and the like, just to have those friends.

Yes, this time it is different. We are the minority in a country that has gone mad. We are entering the “Dim Ages,” not quite as dark as the Dark Ages, but give it time. Reason is gone, evidence extraneous. The train is closing in on America, the people are looking out the bus windows smiling, drinking, waving, celebrating with their red hats. It is so hard to stop a train. That a society would prefer to be led by a narcissist idiot, whose closing message to America was to stand before thirty thousand people–many of them cheering evangelicals–and pretend to masturbate and perform oral sex on a microphone, instead of a bright, hardworking, moral woman. They chose the fool. Yeah, it must be a cult.

I am assured that many of you reading this share my despondency. I have one message of hope, that’s in my head at least. Don’t feel it in my heart yet. Even if you are not someone who reads or believes the Bible, this story from the Bible would be helpful.

I kings 18 and 19

In this story, Israel had an evil king and queen, Ahab and Jezebel. When drought struck the area, Ahab began to worship Baal, the Canaanite God of weather. Soon, it seemed like the whole kingdom was converted to Baal worship as they were growing more desperate.

God came to Elijah, Israel’s main prophet to God, and told him to set up an empirical experiment to demonstrate which god, Baal or the God of the Hebrews, was the true God.

In this experiment, two altars were built with wood and a cut-up bull sacrifice on each. Elijah was to summon all the people of the land to witness this experiment. God is an empiricist. Over 850 prophets of the idols also came. The prophets of Baal would come and pray for fire to come down and ignite the altar, but after hours, it never happened.

Then Elijah ordered that his altar be drenched in water. He prayed to the God of the Hebrews and fire came down, lapping up the water and even burning many of the Prophets to Baal.

At this moment of jubilation for Elijah, word came out that the evil queen Jezebel wanted Elijah captured and killed.

Elijah, being an anxious, uncertain creature, like me, fled the area to a wilderness, lay down on the ground and in total despondency, he prayed that God would end his life. I relate to that level of despondency as my second year of cancer, a miserable existence, I prayed daily in tears that God would end my life.

An angel came to Elijah and the first thing he said to him, was to eat, drink, and rest. Then God came to him the next day and asked, “What’s wrong with you, dude? You just had this great victory, calling down fire, and now you are running away like a coward?” (all quotes are my paraphrases).

Elijah, speaking like I would, “But God, the whole country has converted to worshiping Baal. They all hate me and now want to kill me.”

God’s answer was very interesting and the hope that we can carry in 2024.

“Oh, Elijah. Son, go home. You’re not alone, there are seven thousand people in Israel who have not been duped by Baal, who are not Ahab and Jezebel ass-kissers. You will anoint a new, good king in their place.”

Conclusion:

While we feel despondent now, we are not alone. There are still millions of Americans who love truth, more than power. Who want America to succeed. Who are not believers in baseless conspiracy theories and hate. We respect all people and long for their success. Now, eat, drink, rest, and then, go back to the fight.

My comfort food is a cinnamon roll. I allow myself one per month. I had two this week, one while writing this. After two weeks of restless nights, I took a sleeping pill (which I rarely take) and have slept two good nights. Maybe, I’m on my way back.

Mike