After The Election: Be The Change You Desire

Today is an interesting day across my social media venues. I see many rejoicing as President Obama has been re-elected to lead our country for another four years. I see many asking — in sadness, in confusion, and often in anger — what this means for the causes many of us hold dear: the sanctity of all human life, care for all of those in need, and religious liberty.

I’m not a pundit, so it’s not my way to answer either of those camps or to second-guess the will of the voters or our system of government.

So what is my job today? To be the change I desire.

To “be the change” I must commit:

To stop waiting for a system, one man, or a political party to make our country a better, more loving and more fruitful place to live
To stop thinking that my prayers — in absence of my actions — will help those in need
To stop “writing about it” instead of “doing it”
To stop looking at people in groups, classifying them according to anything more than simply another “child of God”

I’ll be the first to admit that I cannot change our entire country. But I can change my own little corner of it each and every day.

I can feed hungry folks in my community. I can nurture and love the teenagers in my life and their friends so that young women will not find themselves in need of choosing against the sanctity of human life. I can learn to communicate more effectively with families living in my town who have languages and cultures and needs that vary from my own. I can be active at my parish, which is a major source of support for the hungry, the poor and the lonely where I live. And I can continue to believe that the actions of each of our families do have an impact and that one little suburban housewife does have a responsibility in this world.

Following the election results, you might like to read:

Will you “be the change” you desire? What does that look like in your world?

After the Election: Be the Change You Desire