If one day could do it....

If one day could turn around a year of agony, yesterday was that day.

For all my angst and upset over President He Who Will Not Be Named since his election and everything that has happened since. Yesterday restored my hope and longing for the country I want to live in--and it came from the most unexpected place.

Alabama.

I've never been in Alabama and until today I never wanted to be.

I'm a transplanted Appalachian in New England (the first hundred years are the hardest--then you belong here) but I've never been a Southerner. If you think people from the mountains are Southern, I could give you a lesson in why not.

I love going to Oak Island, North Carolina, but that's vacation land and doesn't really count as 'the South'. For most of my life 'the South' has stood for everything I don't stand for and Alabama has been the 'most South' place of all.

But the coalition of blacks, young people, city folks and suburban (small 'r') republican white women gave me faith that even in Alabama I could find a place to be.

I grew up in the Pilgrim Holiness Church and the Evangelical Methodist Church. I have a warm spot in my heart for white evangelical Christians. Some of the 'best people' I ever knew were those folks.

But the lies they've had to tell themselves to support Trump and then Roy Moore have tarnished my admiration for their position (without agreeing with their position much at all--I admired their stand). But the cracks in the wall of all the 'family values' and 'Biblical principles' have become very deep.

I pray they regain their previous moral stance and, though my moral stance is different, I long to respect them again.

But now I don't. How far you'd have to come from the faith of my grandmaw Jones and the Jones family to support Roy Moore is beyond belief.

We need Evangelical Christians in our midst to give us a plum line about morality.

The plum line has gone badly askew.

As the signs on barns throughout the south say: Get Right With God.

Heed that my white Evangelical brothers and sisters. Heed it well.

Heal and come back to be a compass in our midst. Please.