Wednesday, December 11, 2019

X ...... the power in a vote.








Prayer That Voting In This Election Will Make Some Small Difference For Someone Somewhere Even If It Feels Like It Won’t.




By Martin Wroe

Dec 10 · 
We don’t expect the earth from this one brief pencil scratch we make every few years.
But is it too much to ask that drawing this X on that ballot paper might in some immeasurable way, sooner rather than later, foster a fraction more of the common good than we have right now, share out life’s riches a little more fairly, offer some breathing space to the good earth we walk on and make the day less daunting to those who wake up fearful.
It’s a big ask when so many politicians appear duplicitous and self-serving, unable to answer a straight question without bending it, or to disguise an opinion as a fact. When it’s hard to see beyond the fundamentalism of the political tribes, their reluctance to confess an error or admit to agnosticism, to celebrate an opponent when she is right and true, to imagine the beauty of compromise.
But this is a prayer for us as as well as them. About how to find the still point inside the storm of manufactured drama, the commentators in thrall to themselves, the cynical media tycoons washing their hands of responsibility and the furious tantrums in our online echo chambers.
It’s a stretch of a prayer from one whose faith flickers on and off like an exhausted candle but what are the chancers of some good politicians, the ones who are in it for everyone else, to gain a little more leverage. The ones who dream of a world where the proud and powerful are scattered, where those pushed down or pushed out are set free and the forgotten are finally remembered.
This is a prayer that the wise will not be outvoted by the smart, nor the truth by the spin.
That those who end up holding power might notice they are sisters and brothers to those who feel they hold none.
That peace and justice will not lose their deposit and kindness and generosity will find themselves represented.
That as we scratch out this fragile X we remember that the quiet revolution of love and mercy is not for ever silenced.
That a vote for the world we believe in, the world we work for, the world we dream of… is never a wasted vote.
That your will be done even though, as usual, we won’t understand it.
In the name of faith, hope and love,
Amen