Surprised, and yet not...

I guess it isn't really that surprising that Barack Obama won the presidential election this year. It's disappointing and frustrating, but not all that surprising.

Our fundamental problems as Americans have not changed, in my opinion. We are just as divided now as we have been in the last several elections. The democrats were able to overcome us this time, in part by galvanizing the black population which was likely more divided in the past and possibly less active on election day. The right is still conservative and the left is still liberal. Both sides want change, actually, and have for a long time now.

Our problem, as republicans, is not that we lost this one election but that we have lost our way. The Christian church has the same problem: the hope is gone. Hope in the biblical sense meaning a trust (not a wish) in the future. How many of us are really proud to be republicans (or Christians, for that matter) any more?

We've lost our solidarity, our brotherhood, and our stamina. I think we're exhausted and "sore" from years and years of idealistic starvation and punishment. We have lost so much ground now that it seems impossible to fix things. We've given up building an ideal world and resorted to guarding what seems to be left of the old one. What are we conserving now? A dying past? Why don't we instead conserve our ideals and build a future?

The world has deceived us into thinking that we are disappearing. All that has disappeared is our energy.