I Feel Like Someone Caught Without Oil in Her Lamp

In about October, I started going back to church for the first time in several years. Although his election seemed impossible, Trump's rhetoric, and the overall national dialogue, had taken an ugly turn that left me feeling a need to seek physical networks — actual humans outside of Facebook — with whom I could stand to oppose old and dark ideas, that had now been given a national platform.

I've always felt too inadequate for church; I don't understand probably half of the Bible, and never felt particularly comfortable around people who seemed so secure in their own relation to the Creator. At the first sense of judgment, I'd disappear. Further, I felt comfortable alone in a solitary relationship with Christ; I could at least understand enough to follow the Golden Rule ... the hundreds of pages of gobbledygook were okay left unstudied.

This election has finally shaken me awake. I feel like someone caught without oil in her lamp; without the tools to contribute in the upcoming few years. Is it too late now to realize that to combat physical violence, one must be physically present — and to combat adverse theology, one has to be an expert theologian — study was never just for one's own journey; it was to become capable of helping the Other.

To those of you here who are secure in your faith, I encourage you to look to your neighbors near and far, who may not have considered your community a realistic option before. We're with you on this, but are without some of the spiritual tools and depth you have. We want to help, don't know what to do, and seek leadership.