Election Day Movie

Berlin, MA town election box is retired this year for electronic voting. Photo by Noel Rosenberg.

Today, or this week, or however long it takes to determine the winners of this election, we have not reached the end of the movie. When we know the election results we will not find either that evil is vanquished nor that hope has prevailed.

The script is not all written. What I am counting on today, and in the days and weeks and months and years to come, is you my neighbors, my family, my friends. For we are the people who will determine how the moral arc of the universe will bend.

Today, like every day, is the beginning of our work to care for the poor and the oppressed, to protect those who are attacked, and stand  up for justice and liberty for all. Today, like everyday, our work will be harder than we hoped, and more important than we realized. There are many plot lines still to come.

For some of us that work is internal, to heal from the trauma we have been handed, and to figure out how to keep from passing that trauma on. Thank you for that voiceover work you do. For some of us the work is interpersonal, raising children, educating others, providing healing for our bodies and our minds, and our souls. Thank you for the background scene setting that you do. For some of us the work is systemic, improving and defending the institutions created to protect the least of these our siblings and neighbors. Thank you for the work hidden in the back office, and the great protest scenes that keep everyone else engaged. All this work will be hard in the coming days. Keep to it as best you can.

For those of us that identify as Christian, the work includes the peculiar requirement that we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. This is not about backing down from our values. It is about believing that every person can be transformed by God’s unending love. Our hardest work is passing on God’s love and the most important in the coming days. Sometimes we look like the person in plaid pants, completely out of place in the scene. Still we keep on.

We must show up in many ways. This is a time to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. A time to look for ways of healing while repudiating violence. A time to stand firm in righteousness without giving up our gentle souls.

Please celebrate or mourn our election. And then find a way to be the people who will change our world to one where everyone has a right to live. We keep the movie is playing.

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