Lucy awoke chipper as could be on Tuesday November 8,
knowing that today was gong to be the perfect day she’d been anticipated and
working hard for, for 18 months. Lucy said that those were 18 months of
laughing, hugging, and spreading the love she had for Hillary Clinton and her
message.
Lucy looked forward to that Tuesday evening, an evening she
knew she would celebrate for the rest of her life. She knew that later she'd
knock back a glass of champagne and begin to construct the story she’d tell her
yet-to -be -born -daughter. She imagined
that she would, on that night of nights, get close enough to Hillary Clinton to
give her a hug, and whisper, “Thank you.”
LUCY ON THE MOVE
LUCY ON THE MOVE
Lucy had been hyperactive the last several weeks of the campaign, going to
North Carolina and Colorado to spread the good word. The people she’d talked to
as she campaigned had given her hope, and made her feel “downright high.” Yes,
tonight, this Tuesday of Tuesdays, was going to be a night in which she would
know the thrill of victory, while those she hated would learn the agony of
defeat.
Being in New York for the victory party in the especially
reserved Javits Center would be the highlight of Lucy’s life, so off she and
her boyfriend went for the long-awaited celebration. As she mingled with the
assembled joyous, she and they knew great things were to come.
REALITY
REALITY
But after three hours, it became apparent to Lucy and the
joyous that something was going horribly wrong. She began to see the smiling faces around her turn ice cold.
When the vote count from Florida arrived, Lucy touched her face
and realized she was crying. She looked at her boyfriend and realized he was
having trouble breathing. Her chin felt odd; she was breaking out in hives. Lucy
looked at the woman next to her. She was breaking out in hives too.
Crying, she asked her boyfriend, “Can we please go home?”
As they walked home, a friend called to say, “It’s over.”
Lucy froze momentarily. They went to a nearby diner, sat down, and ate a bite
or two and realized that no one was speaking, no one in the entire place.
Silence. Her boyfriend was crying.
Arriving home, Lucy became hysterical. She mumbled incoherently.
Finally, when she got control of herself, she lamented: “It wasn’t supposed to
go this way,” she kept repeating.
When she woke up on Wednesday, she’d lost her voice; it
was squeaky and raw, and her thirty-year old body ached. Wednesday and
Thursday, she said, were days of mourning. The entire week, she was numb.
WHAT GIVES?
A thirty-year old adult carrying on that way? Her boyfriend
can’t breathe? He’s crying too? She’s
got hives? She’s hysterical? She’s incoherent? Lucy might listen to David
Suissa, writing in “The Jewish Journal:” “The truth is, no politician can make
you happy.” Or better yet, Lucy needs to listen to the Bible:
“Thus says the Lord, ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in
mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord.’”
Then the Bible goes on to describe the life of those who
trust in mankind: “For he will be like a bush in the desert . . . in stony
wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant.” (Jeremiah 17:5-6)
Sounds like where Lucy and her boyfriend were living.
Lucy’s problem is that she’s rejected the Bible and
everything in it. And yet, just as in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, grace is being
offered to Lucy: Jesus said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and
stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children
together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were
unwilling.” The gracious invitation is right there in front of Lucy in the Bible she's rejected and continues to do so.
Trusting in man is a miserable way to live. But that's the way it is when politics is your life.
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