Watching President-elect Donald Trump’s falsehood-filled news conference this week, thinking back over his foul, nasty campaign, an election stained with slurs, serial insults, black voter suppression and an outcome influenced by Russia, and looking ahead with dread to his swearing-in Friday as president of the United States of America, a small, quiet voice within asks: “Dear God, are we being punished?”

It has certainly happened before. We know what you did to the wicked and sinful in Sodom and Gomorrah. And they had it coming.

Who can forget the punishment you handed out to Ananias and Sapphira for their deception, so aptly described in the Acts of the Apostles? Your wrath against wrongdoing and injustice is amply documented throughout the Scriptures.

But what have we done that is so unwholesome, so egregious, as to deserve punishment in the form of Trump?

Is it our backsliding? To be sure, we certainly have had relapses into bad ways from time to time. We have looked past each other. Turned a blind eye to the hungry and the homeless. Ignored injustices. But do we merit this coming calamity?

What if we promise to change our ways?

I know, promises, promises. That’s what we always do — make promises to change — when we find ourselves in a tight spot.

You must grow tired of hearing folks like us resort to the words in Jeremiah: “O Lord, we acknowledge our wickedness and the guilt of our fathers; we have indeed sinned. . . . Remember your covenant with us and do not break it.” Guess it’s a little late for that.

Well, we must have done something terribly wrong to be getting what’s waiting for us on Inauguration Day. The words of Hosea 9:7 come to mind: “The days of punishment are coming, the days of reckoning are at hand.”

But, dear Lord, perhaps there is another way of looking at this. Maybe we are falling into the mistake of misreading our fate.

Could it be that the stumbling block we fear you will place before us at high noon Friday is actually a stepping stone in disguise?

Is it possible that Trump has been installed as a challenge to renew our strength and forge the kind of social contract that President Obama talked about in his farewell address — guaranteeing kids, including those of immigrants, the education they need; updating the social safety net; getting better wages for workers; changing hearts; jealously guarding our democracy?

But, if the 2016 election has taught anything, it’s that progress requires action and sacrifice.

Inspiration for that comes not only from Obama, but also from the man whose federal holiday is celebrated on Monday, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Read his words to the Montgomery Improvement Association on Dec. 5, 1955: “This is the glory of America, with all of its faults. This is the glory of our democracy. . . . If we were dropped in the dungeon of a totalitarian regime, we couldn’t do this. But the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right. . . .

“And we are not wrong; we are not wrong in what we are doing. . . . If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning.

“And we are determined . . . to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

When you think of Trump, think of these words spoken by King:

“I want to say that in all of our actions, we must stick together. Unity is the great need of the hour, and if we are united we can get many of the things that we not only desire but which we justly deserve. And don’t let anybody frighten you. We are not afraid of what we are doing, because we are doing it within the law.”

King concluded:

“As we prepare ourselves for what lies ahead, let us go out with the grim and bold determination that we are going to stick together. We are going to work together.”

So on King’s day, let’s gear up to bring about the “fair, just and inclusive America” that President Obama fought hard to create.

Donald Trump? As David said to Goliath, “Bring it on.”

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