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Processing the Election

Thursday, Nov. 7 at 6:30 pm

Processingthe ElectionThursday, Nov. 7 at 6:30 pm

PROCESSING THE UPCOMING NATIONAL ELECTION AS A TRAUMA EVENT IN OUR LIVES

Dear Members and Friends of UCN,

As your minister, over the upcoming weeks (both before and after November 5th election) I will be focused on helping us both face and process what I believe to be a significant trauma event in our shared lives. While nothing like the trauma of a hurricane or tornado or flood, the terrible dynamics of this election have made us all anxious, disheartened and fearful…and I believe that (whether we are fully aware of it or not) we are already experiencing trauma that is dangerous to our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.


For me as a Unitarian Universalist, this trauma has two obvious dimensions:

1) I am terribly worried that a slight majority of the electorate may make a terribly wrong choice, sending America spiraling down a mean, dark, divisive and destructive path.

2) I am already experiencing incredible disbelief (and profound grief) that so many of my fellow citizens seem willing to support a hateful, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, homophobic, compassionless, excusatory and backward-looking vision of what America must be.


And no matter what the actual outcome of the election is -- and whether we succeed in settling the results without falsehoods and violence, something I am not at all sure of – we still we face the on-going, and unrelenting trauma of having a nation deeply divided between “Right” and “Left.”

Because of all these painful concerns and more, I will be devoting the Sunday before the election, November 3, to an “Election Sermon” addressing what we together face…and the Sunday after the election, November 10, to the topic of “So, Where Do We Go From Here?”


Also, we have scheduled a special congregational “REFLECTON AND SUPPORT” SESSION at 6:30 on Thursday evening, November 7th for us as a community to process the election and its on-going ramifications.


I know that all of you share my awareness of how terribly monumental and important this election is to us as a people of faith and Americans -- so very much is humanly at stake. Please be in touch with me personally if you have other concerns, and join with the other members and friends of the congregation as together we work to process this trauma and move forward.

Lyn Gust
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