VOTE! Thursday's Reflection

I'm going to vote today.



I prefer walking up the block to Nativity Church, my polling location, to vote alongside my neighbors, but I will be out of town on election day and therefore, requested an absentee ballot.





I am grateful there is more than one way, one day to vote, and I intend to wear the red "I voted" sticker enclosed in the envelope with my ballot just as soon as I complete the process. I do wonder, however, why there is only one official voting day when we can gather in our polling locations. And why a Tuesday? What would happen if the polls were open Sunday through Tuesday, for example? And why isn't a national holiday declared to celebrate this sacred right of citizenship? 

And why is it more people do not exercise this right, especially when so many people in our country have to remain vigilant to maintain their right to vote and so many people are denied a right to vote? Recently on a Minnesota Public Radio program about young people and voting I heard a young man say he doesn't vote because there is no one good enough to deserve his vote. Well, heaven knows, there seem to be many politicians who do not deserve our vote, but who is Good Enough? No one is perfect, and I suspect that young man is not Good Enough either to deserve the many blessings he has received and benefits from. 

What does it mean to be Good Enough anyway? 

I will be in Alabama the day of the midterm elections on a weeklong civil rights tour, and I wonder how that will feel and what I will learn. 

In preparation for the tour I have read Taylor Branch's massive Parting the Waters, America in the King Years 1954-1963, volume one of three books about the King years, and was so moved by the struggles, the bloodshed, the threats, and the desperation to prevent people from voting, and by the struggles, the effort, the passion in the face of physical harm, even death to claim that right. 

And now, amazingly, in 2018 the fight to insure that all citizens are able to vote continues. How can that be? 

I am one of the privileged. I have never been asked to prove my worthiness to vote, to show I am smart enough or rich enough, or white enough to vote. All I needed to do was register to vote, and no one has attempted to prevent me from doing so. I suspect that is true for most of my readers.  

Please, exercise your ease of voting. 

Marianne Williamson prays, 

                       Please reveal to me, Lord, a way to stand
                       in my power, through love instead of fear,
                       and through peace instead of violence.

Voting is a way to stand in my power. 

Voting is the loving thing to do.

Voting is the peaceful thing to do.

Vote. 

An Invitation
Are you registered? Are you planning to vote? I would love to know.