Opening Reflection
The morning after the election, the air was thick with accusation.
“Never Forget,” they typed, but what they meant was never forgive.
Images of celebration were met with suspicion; words of hope, with hostility.
Some saw new faces and called it progress. Others saw the same faces and called it loss.
But beneath the noise runs a quieter ache — the ache of a nation still deciding what it remembers, and why.
What Happened
In early November 2025, voters across the United States went to the polls for state and municipal races that will shape budgets, law enforcement priorities, and social programs for years to come.
Among the outcomes drawing attention was the election of a new state security director in New York — a Muslim public servant now tasked with overseeing one of the nation’s largest counter-terror units. Reactions online ranged from pride in representation to fear-laden hostility. Within hours, social media feeds filled with Islamophobic comments invoking 9/11 and questioning national memory.
“Never Forget” resurfaced, but this time twisted from remembrance into reproach.
This pattern is not new. Each election cycle, grief resurfaces in rhetoric. The trauma of past violence—especially the attacks of September 11—remains part of America’s collective memory. But when remembrance turns into resentment, empathy erodes.
Research from the Pew Research Center and the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding shows that American Muslims remain among the most frequent targets of online hate speech despite increased civic participation (Pew, 2024; ISPU, 2025).
That context matters — because what happens on screens eventually happens in streets.
So we do not gather here to debate candidates. We gather to ask a different question: What do we, as people of faith and conscience, do with our fear?
Theological Interpretation
Love Without Condition
Love that fears nothing must begin by remembering rightly. “Never Forget” was once a call to unity — to honor loss with vigilance. But memory without mercy calcifies into suspicion.
Love without condition reimagines remembering as re-membering — putting the body of humanity back together. When we meet difference with defense, we shrink the kingdom. When we meet difference with curiosity and care, we widen the table.
“Memory without mercy calcifies into suspicion.”
Justice as Worship
Justice begins not at the courthouse but at the heart. If we say we worship the God of mercy yet feed the rhetoric of hate, our liturgy rings hollow.
Justice as worship demands that we examine how fear dictates public spending, policing, and who is labeled as “safe.” A nation that claims to “never forget” must also refuse to forget the immigrant father working double shifts, the hijabi mother on the subway, the queer teen praying for belonging.
Every act of fairness, every defense of civil rights, every insistence that safety includes everyone — that is worship.
Healing Through Grace
Grace invites us to hold grief without weaponizing it. The trauma of 9/11, of wars and terror and division, still hums beneath our collective skin. Grace does not erase those memories; it transfigures them.
It turns “Never Forget” from a slogan of fear into a discipline of compassion: Never forget the humanity of one another.
Only then can mourning move toward meaning.
The People Behind the Headlines
Fear is contagious, but so is belonging. When communities scapegoat a faith group, the ripples reach others too. Disabled Muslims navigating airport security, trans Muslims seeking healthcare, immigrants without fluent English—each faces compounded scrutiny.
When online hate normalizes exclusion, policy soon follows: surveillance expands, resources narrow, compassion contracts.
For Bloom Ministries, whose members include people of many faiths and none, this climate hits close. Trans and disabled believers know what it is to be treated as threat instead of neighbor. We recognize that spiritual safety and physical safety are intertwined. When any group’s dignity is questioned, all marginalized bodies feel the tremor.
Bloom’s Response: Building Digital Sanctuaries of Memory
Our task is not to correct every comment thread. It is to build counter-narratives where compassion trends faster than fear. This month, Bloom is expanding our Digital Sanctuary Project to include resources for interfaith allyship and trauma-informed dialogue:
- Plain-language guides on responding to online hate safely
- Reflections for congregations on healing after collective trauma
- Open submissions for stories of solidarity across lines of belief
We believe remembrance can become reconciliation when communities learn to hold history together. The antidote to hate speech is not silence; it is sacred storytelling.
Action Steps: Practicing Mercy in a Fearful Time
For Neighbors
- Pause before reposting outrage. Ask: Will this heal or harm?
- Reach out to a Muslim neighbor, coworker, or classmate. A single text—thinking of you today—can interrupt isolation.
- Attend an interfaith gathering or open mosque event; proximity dissolves prejudice.
For Congregations
- Preach remembrance through compassion. Replace fear-based metaphors with hospitality.
- Create safety teams trained in de-escalation and accessibility, not armed response.
- Collaborate with local Muslim, Sikh, and Jewish communities on shared service projects—hunger relief, housing, mental health care. Shared mission heals historic divides.
For Donors & Partners
- Fund trauma-informed education programs that teach empathy in schools.
- Support accessibility improvements in houses of worship for disabled congregants of all faiths.
- Contribute to Bloom’s ongoing Sanctuary Project, ensuring that our online and physical spaces remain inclusive refuges for those targeted by hate.
Pastoral Reflection: The Work of Remembering Rightly
There is a kind of remembering that hardens the heart, and another kind that keeps it beating.
The first clings to pain as proof. The second holds pain as prayer.
The first says, “Never Forget,” and builds walls. The second whispers, “Never forget love,” and builds tables.
We cannot unsee what violence did to us, but we can choose what it makes of us. If our gospel cannot feed people, then our words are only feeding the wealthy. If our faith cannot welcome the stranger, then our worship is only echo.
To remember rightly is to keep the feast even for those once feared. This is not naïveté. It is resistance through tenderness—the steady insistence that mercy is stronger than memory’s fear.
Closing Benediction
Beloved, the headlines may rage, but the heart of God is still peace. May we learn to hold grief without turning it into a weapon. May we remember not to punish but to protect.
May every mosque, church, synagogue, temple, and living room altar become a refuge for the weary. And when the world chants “Never Forget,” may we answer:
“Never forget the humanity of one another.”
