The Presidential Election: The Day After and Holding onto Hope

On the day before the election, I saw a photo of President Barack Obama hanging in effigy outside a voting site and gas station in Raleigh, N.C. With that image in my mind and the nation's conscience, I wrote that with whomever would win this year's presidential election, it has become very clear over the past several months that we are a nation that remains significantly divided along racial lines. We are far from being a post-racial/post-racist society. And my prayer was (and continues to be) that God would grant us all the courage to speak out and act out to address such division.

And last night at the re-election of President Obama as the 44th president of the United States, if anything the president's re-election says to the world that the invisible, poor, 47% do indeed have a voice. Now, it is also my prayer that God will anoint the president's leadership, and that the healing of the land will begin. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Now the real work for all of us begins. On the president's agenda for the next for years must be jobs, health care for everybody, helping the poor, children and the elderly, gender justice in the workplace, and bringing our men and women home from the war in Afghanistan (and bringing true honor and meaning to his Nobel Peace Prize). And for those of us who voted for him (and for all Americans) on our agenda must be supporting our president and all of our leaders, doing our part to move our communities forward, and praying for our president and not preying on him.