Because I am a pastor, people in my church as well as friends, colleagues and neighbors often say: “Can I ask you a question about religion?”
People are curious, have feelings and questions, and I always say yes. I have found, over the years, that the three most common questions I am asked are the following: Does prayer make a difference? Is there life after death? If there is a God, why is there suffering?
These are difficult and complicated theological questions, but when asked in the cheese department of our local co-op, I need to offer a short but meaningful answer. To be painfully and wildly brief here (and therefore inadequate), I will share the abbreviated version of some of my answers.
I believe that prayer makes a difference in the world; I believe it sends positive energy into the cosmos and I think it changes the person praying.
I do not know if there is life after death; I am more interested in life before death — meaningful life where every person is safe, loved, fed, protected and content.
Questions about suffering are the hardest because I sometimes alienate people with my answer. I believe that God is a pulsing energy in the universe and that energy is all goodness, fairness and love. I believe that God is all-loving, but not all-powerful, and that God “weeps” when we weep and cannot control or undo the horrors humans create due to our own failings and greed. I believe humans are made in God’s image but are totally autonomous.
What is interesting to me now is that over the past two years I have been asked a new question — not frequently, but often enough that I have taken note. The new question is some variation of this: Do nations have souls, and, if yes, has this country’s soul been damaged by the current administration?
I believe that countries do have souls — and the soul of the country is the accumulation or combination of all the individual souls, past and present, of its inhabitants. And yes, I believe that the soul of this nation has been sullied and damaged by Donald Trump through his lying, corruption and immoral behavior.
This country has both goodness and evil in our DNA, in our very soul. We are a country built on genocide and slavery. And yet we also are a country that professed and recorded lofty ideals and visions when founded. I believe this country has a soul that longs for justice and equity, but must continue to struggle with our history of exclusion, exploitation and brutality.
As a nation, I believe we long to confront our past — our country’s soul longs to embrace the truth of our past, to reconcile, to repair and to rebuild. There is goodness in this county — goodness in our nation’s soul — alongside enormous pain, shame, violence and inequity.
The soul of this country holds a mixture of calculated slaughter and enslavement as well as brave dissent and courageous resistance. And each act on the part of individuals, communities, and movements that confesses wrongdoing, requests forgiveness, and seeks reparations is soul-restoring.
I believe that souls can be renewed. I believe in redemption. But redemption requires hard work: clear-eyed and informed attention, sincere humility, and an unshakable commitment to honesty. Because these qualities are totally lacking in our current president and many in the circle that surrounds him, we must — the people of this country — redouble our efforts daily to make certain our actions reflect these values.
It is up to us, alone and together. We simultaneously carry and create the soul of this nation — each one of us. Our individual decisions and actions matter. And as a people, we are powerful individually and even more powerful collectively.
We must be the walking, talking, living models of what we believe is the best in the soul of this country: advancing justice, caring for children, honoring elders, protecting the planet, welcoming the stranger, rejecting violence, dismantling oppression and refusing to sanction war
During this current administration, we need to save our democracy and continue our work to restore the soul of this nation. It will help us to remember that marching for peace, speaking out for justice, resettling refugees, preventing nuclear war, addressing the climate emergency and combating racism are exactly what democracy looks like and exactly what will renew the soul of this nation. All our efforts to repent our sins as a nation, heal from our past atrocities, and claim a new vision are soul-restoring work.
When asked if a country has a soul, my immediate response is yes. When pressed and asked if I believe the soul of this nation is endangered, I also say yes. But there is hope. We are the hope. And that sure belief brings comfort to my heart.
The Rev. Dr. Andrea Ayvazian of Northampton is an associate pastor at Alden Baptist Church in Springfield. She is also the founder and director of the Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership, which offers free movement-building classes from Greenfield to Springfield.