The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Less than a week before the election, and the world seems to be moving in slow motion. I have been anxious and jumpy about the outcome - will my candidate win but then have the victory stolen? Will my candidate lose and confirm my worst fears about my country? It all seems so crucial and our country seems to balance on the edge of a knife.

Yet the other day I read a newspaper article featuring several small interviews with voters supporting my candidate's opponent. And they were expressing the same fears, the same anxious conviction that the "wrong" decision would lead to disaster, to a country that they no longer understand.

National affairs of recent years have been so discouraging, so vengeful, so muddled, so seemingly guaranteed to emphasize our divisions and differences, and I am no less susceptible to this effect than anyone else. But I have to admit that when I read about the fears of those who oppose my candidate, I felt a pang of sorrow and brotherhood. In that sharp moment I felt a unity with and compassion for them that I rarely allow myself to feel.

I am trying to remember that presidential terms are short, the history of our country longer, and our hope for humankind's future is longer still. As MLK said, "Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." The waiting of the next few days is nothing compared to this arc whose slow bending we await and try to hasten, each in our own way.

Peace and Love