I don't accept the results of the election

 I am grieved and sobered. But I don’t accept the results of the election.

I don't accept that we are against each other and unable to find common ground.  I reject the assertion that we are hopelessly polarized and divided.  I don’t agree to see us as on opposite teams with opposite viewpoints and concerns. I will not concede that some people don’t care about basic human needs, their own or others'.  We all need food and home and belonging and love.  We all want a stable economy filled with opportunity. Nobody want dirty air or water, or to pass on an uninhabitable earth to the next generation. We all want to be safe, to live in safe neighborhoods and a safe country.  We all want to be seen and heard, and to know our lives are valuable and our contributions matter.  We all want to trust we will be well cared for when we’re sick or injured, and we want to know our futures are secure.  All of us want and believe in justice and liberty for all.  Working for these things is not undermining them; being passionate about some of these things does not mean rejecting others.  I do not accept that this is so.  I will seek common ground, and join in a shared reality that uphold the needs and lives of all.

I don’t accept the urgency and intensity. I refuse to greet each day with anxiety and hand-wringing about the future, predictions of doom and insistence on vigilance.  Instead I will welcome each day as an opportunity to live into our fundamental belonging to each other.  I will watch for ways to affirm our intrinsic connection, to notice our shared humanity, and to join in strengthening the patriotic cooperation and mutual respect of this nation that together we are. 

I don’t accept that we are in “battle between good and evil.” I refuse to surrender to exaggeration and hyperbole. I decline any invitation and rebuff any insistence to depict other human beings as caricatures, or distortions of their humanity, in order to label them more effectively, so I can dismiss them guiltlessly, or acquiesce to them thoughtlessly.  Instead I will remind myself that we all are a mess of contradictions: selfishness and beauty, love and obliviousness, trying and failing.  I will not let this election take away the exquisite complexity of each human being with whom I share this country.  

I don’t accept that cooperation is impossible, or that to meet my needs I must deny yours, or to meet your needs you must deny mine.  We need each other. I don’t accept that I am better off without you. 

 

I don’t accept that some voices should be silenced, even if those voices grieve me.  Instead, I pray that the voices that sadden or frighten me might stir me to compassion and curiosity about the person behind the rhetoric, the humanity that is just like my own, armored and defending a frightened and tender heart that longs to love and be loved. 

 

Right now our brokenness is on full display.  But I do not accept that this state of being is permanent or dire. Instead I welcome it as a sign of breaking open, the possibility of our soul healing differently, stronger.  I will not be afraid of the pain. I will not be afraid of the struggle.  I know the joy that is found in shared suffering, and the peace that comes in coming alongside. I have seen how new life comes from death. I have seen how the loss of what we thought we were can lead to what we can be. I have learned that being human means we are always in process, never complete. Each of us is always learning, always growing, always invited (and sometimes forced) to begin again and dream anew. Why would our collective of human beings called the United States of America be any different? 

So, no matter who ends up being our president for the next four years, I do not accept fear as the winner of our nation. I will be led by love and guided by hope.  

America is us; it’s you and it’s me. This I embrace.

A Prayer for the 4th of July

We belong

first and foremost

to you, Lord.

God of heaven and earth,

eternity and the moment,

ever and always.

Then we belong to the whole of creation;

the living, the dead,

the yet to become, and the reborn,

the ongoing cycle of earth and life

with its glorious array of ever-expanding participants:

mountains and trees and oceans and valleys,

gazelles and robins and rivers and earthworms,

all.

Next we belong to the human family,

all humanity in every corner of the vast globe,

all languages, creeds, cultures, skin tones, religions, beliefs, experiences, 

hopes, celebrations, losses, goals, 

vocations, technologies and connections,

in grief and wonder and anger and happiness and confusion and sadness and joy.

Whatever happens, and no matter what,

we belong to them all, all, all.

And they all

belong to us.

After this we are grouped - 

some arbitrarily and some by choice - 

into land masses and geographic regions.

We develop identifying accents, clothing preferences and regional tastebuds

which is to say,

we gather our experiences into ourselves

alongside others

who are gathering into themselves experiences

alongside us.

We call our places of belonging towns, counties, villages and cities,

tribes, nations, countries, continents and coalitions;

these countless designations simply mean that

we live nearby

and agree to certain codes of living with one another

that, in one way or another, uphold our greater belonging - 

to the whole human family,
the living and the dead of all creation,

and the Lord of all.

Next we have the smaller groups in which we learn

and the people there who teach us,

the neighbors, musicians, coaches and collaborators,

the members of our faith, our teams, our clans.

We have hobbies we cultivate with people who practice them alongside us,

passions we pursue and those whom they impact,

jobs we end up in and those who end up there too,

whose lives intertwine with our own.

And then there are those specific people from whom we come,

the ones whose being and belonging

shape our own being and belonging most directly,

I mean, of course,

our ancestors and grandparents,

aunts and uncles, cousins and kin,

parents and siblings.

We may have the partner with whom we share our life,

and the children whom we shape and watch become,

and the pets we assemble into our homes,

and the gardens we tend,

and the friendships we cultivate,

and the places we grow our roots,

deep, strong and sure,

with and for those to whom we give our hearts,

who will one day be buried in the ground alongside everyone and everything else,

to which we already and always belong.

So on this day that celebrates our nation,

we give thanks for all the belongings that hold us,

both created and innate.

We give thanks for the communities into which we pour our lives,

and for all those in our communities that pour their lives into us.

We give thanks for the earth that nurtures all life,

and all those who nurture the earth.

On this day that celebrates our nation,

in our collective belonging called The United States of America

we give thanks for all that is good and wise and kind,

all that upholds our humanity,

both individual and shared.

Thank you, God.

And in our collective belonging called The United States of America

we confess all that is evil, foolish and divisive,

all that damages our soul,

both individual and shared.

Forgive us, Lord.

And when this day that celebrates our nation

has come to an end

in fireworks and fanfare,

it remains

that beyond country, beyond kin,

beyond borders and beliefs,

beyond any and all boundaries,

whether natural or unnatural,

is the Great Belonging,

that is,

to one another, all,

and to you, Lord of all.

For this, today,

we give thanks.

Amen.