That we remember that each person in this land, is our brother or sister in Christ.
That we strive in our personal lives to see each person as equal in dignity, irrespective of any and all differences.
That we remember the purpose of law, is to help a people be more just, more fair, more protective of the innocent, more supportive of the weak.
That we work as a nation and to a person, to meet the needs of our world by seeing the needs of others not as an endless burden, but as our opportunity to be a source of warmth and light, healing and hope.
That we remember each person is our neighbor.
That we will seek to love our neighbor as ourselves.
For all these things and a peaceful election, with peace pouring into the hearts of all, we pray. Amen.
The election is the transfer of power. However the real work, is in the governing of our hearts –how are we going to be a people who seek to be just, to be kind, to be generous, to be fair, if we do not demand it of our leaders and our laws, and of ourselves?
Pray for our nation, our leaders, and everyone who votes and who does not vote. Pray for those who feel frightened. Pray for those who feel angry. This nation needs to be steeped in intercessory grace by those who love it, and what it can stand for, what it aspires to be.
The American experiment is ever ongoing, while the American experience is often a story of high aspiration, and the struggles both to reach those lofty goals, and the recognition those goals might be hard and convey wealth and power, and yet not satisfy. We are an unsatisfied people –which makes sense, because we often put our ambitions into something other than loving God and our neighbor. Only God satisfies. Only God suffices. ”
Our role in the American experiment is to go on, and to wrestle with how well we live out God’s will within the confines of this land’s laws and policies, and how well we love our neighbor is the means by which we show the fullness of our faith, with our works. Our job is to make the American experience for others, something wholer than whatever they’ve encountered up to now, something holy.
I am not claiming this nation is better than any others when I say these things. I am saying, where we are, we are. If we want this nation to be better, the power to make it so rests in our hands each day and every day and involves everything, not just the ballot box. The ballot box is an exericise of our freedoms, but also a reflection of what we value and why.
What we give in charity, where we work, and how we treat the people who cannot benefit us, is another manifestion of our freedoms. If we do not do the later, then the former is of little consequence. Our laws will be symbollic at best, and our policies enacted with a slant towards self service if we do not live and speak and work in a way that reflects a love of others, of being just, and willingness to work at becoming something holy.
If we want a better nation, the fault lies not in our leaders but in ourselves.
So with that in mind, in an effort to help our country be a kinder, better place, here are fifty ways to work on our nation irrespective of who wins today’s election.
50. Vote. –You knew that right?
49. Recycle. We have one world. We should be good stewards of it.
48. Examine your finances. Are you giving to anything outside of your family? If so, add a little. If not, now is the time to start.
47. Pray for this nation, for these candidates, for their supporters, and for all affected by the outcome. I recommend the rosary.
46. Make a point of becoming more informed about what is going on in the world.
45. Write letters to the editor.
44. Donate some of your stuff each week. Count out your family, donate that many cans to the pantry. Or do a fall purge of clothing or toys or books.
43. Sit in a city or county council meeting. Just to listen.
42. Volunteer this year –doing something. Just a little.
41. Fast.–in some way.
40. Go to mass.
39. Consider whether you should be a leader, whether you should attempt running for office.
38. Go for a walk in your neighborhood. Say hi to your neighbors. Maybe decide it’s time to try making a connection with those around you.
37. Pray for the dead. It’s November. It’s a path to grace for them and you.
36. Turn off the news. Spend the time with your family.
35. Pick up the trash you encounter, even if it’s not yours.
34. Your parish has a committee that addresses social concerns. Find out what they do, help make it happen. If it doesn’t have one, it may be this is how you lead.
33. Make this the year of your neighbor –where every day, even if only with words, you seek to encounter Christ by interacting with the other.
32. Phone your extended family or write them. The connections of this age tend to be horizontal rather than vertical but we need the wisdom of all the generations to make the present better.
31. Begin studying our history –most of us don’t know much of it, maybe learn what it takes to be a citizen if you are testing in, stuff we take for granted but possibly don’t actually know.
30. Play patriotic music today.
29. Fly the flag.
28. Thank a service member..
27. Check on those you know who might have difficulty making it to the polls –small children, or who have transportation issues, or who are medically frail. Offer them support so they can participate.
26. There isn’t an excuse not to know the issues in this day and age, but read up before you go.
25. Pray before you vote.
24. Pray afterwards too.
23. If you see someone being belligerent about this process, pray for them, and help whoever is being badgered.
22. Be a courteous driver today. Let people into your lane, and don’t speed.
21. Recognize that a nation is more than a leader and more than a day. It’s a people every day. Be good and kind irrespective.
20. Consider sitting in adoration or listening to the mass if you cannot go in person. Make today a day of Thanksgiving, for all this country offers and promises, even if it does not always deliver.
19. Write whoever wins, and send your prayers and honest thoughts and concerns. They need to know.
18. Go to bed early. This election will take time to shake out the results.
17. Make sure your rhetoric online and in person or over the phone isn’t cruel or inflammatory –put not your trust in princes.
16. Forgive those who anger you because of political issues. It is the only path forward to peace for any of us. They don’t have to know, but God does.
15. Stay off social media –it’s not healthy today. Or rather, it’s less healthy today than usual.
14. Open doors, smile, greet people. Everyone is going to need that softness while there is uncertainty, and afterwards too.
13. Gracious in victory or defeat.
12. As Catholics, we have no home in either party. As such, if you vote one way, work to address the ills of that party. If you vote the other, the same obligation applies. You are to be a gadfly in the process, urging the parties to listen to the better angels of their nature.
11. If you feel uncertain about the moral reasoning with respect to an issue, brush up on the catechism of that subject. It’s part of why we have a catechism. It’s never too late to learn.
10. Propose a law you think would make wherever it is you live, better.
9. Know the names of your federal representatives and senators: https://www.house.gov/., and https://www.senate.gov/.
8. Get to know the names of the local officials that affect you –governor, state senate, representatives, mayor, and county heads. Yeah I know, homework.
7. Sing the national anthem.
6. Say the pledge of allegiance.
5. Read the Gettysburg Address –as a reminder that we have fought each other before to the point of shedding blood, and somehow, survived that mess. We can and must do better.
4. Challenge yourself to go and read what the opposition holds as its opinion on things –to understand the why. Politics and the political season is about winning access to power. Platforms reveal what are priorities. But the constituency is not a monolith. It’s made up of people and people have reasons they vote as they do. We cannot be a nation if we disavow any thinking on the part of anyone we disagree with, or only ascribe evil to their motivations in all things. Being human, being Catholic requires seeing the humanity in the person we find disagreeable, in the person even who hates us.
3. My favorite professor at the University of Maryland discussed the limitations of the political lens, which views all actions as manipulative, and I think her understanding wiser than most. We may win the fight and lose the heart we were meant to move. Our real battle in this life is not with politics, but with powers and principalities that are bent on division, bent on destruction, bent on crumbling all hope, all good, all service, all relationship and leaving nothing but ache and loneliness and ash in its wake.
2. The souls we save may be our own. Read some Pogo or Flannery O’Connor, something that reminds you, each of us in this life, is radically fallen and requiring God’s grace just to continue to exist, let alone form a friendship with Him or anyone else.
1. Be a friend. The world needs more of them.
God bless and keep us all. Lord knows we need the grace.
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