I just awoke from a dream ...

I could barely walk down the sidewalk what with all the people scampering about. They were all running in the opposite direction from where I was wanting to go. I felt like I was swimming upstream. It reminded me of an old 1950’s horror movie.

When I finally made it to our storefront church building — we had start really growing over the last couple of years and needed a larger space — the place was packed and it was standing room only. I made my way through the crowd and found a place next to Mary. “What’s all the commotion about?” I asked.

“We got word that there are around 600 - 700 white supremacists marching in the town square,” she replied. My stomach sank.

Sam, one of our deacons, was asked to come to the platform and tell us what he experienced.

“In the forty years I’ve lived in this community, I’ve never seen anything like it. They were all wearing their red caps and chanting.”

As I turned to leave, something came over me. I started wailing like a man possessed. The unearthly sound started deep in my throat and came spilling out like a banshee just awoken from her eternal rest. The wail grew louder and louder until it drowned out the commotion from the people and overpowered even the sound system.

I turned and looked right at Sam.

“This is our fault,” I said. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. The place was now quite.

“We’re the ones who were supposed to protect this nation. It was up to us. But we voted for that … that … person whom we all knew was unfit to run this country. We’d seen the interviews. We’d heard the remarks he made about women and minorities and people with disabilities. We watched in horror as he described sexually assaulting women.”

I couldn’t stop myself; it all came spilling out like molten lava from a long dead volcano.

“But when the time came, we voted for him because we didn’t like her. And we would do anything … anything

“even sell our souls for thirty pieces of silver

“before we would let her into the White House.”

“This is our fault. And we all know it. May God have mercy upon us and forgive us.”

“More than that … may our nation and the world forgive us, too.”

“But …

“we shouldn’t hold our breath.”

And with that, I turned and walked out of the building and headed toward town square.