[Dialogue] THINK, PRAY, VOTE

[David & Lin Zahrt]

Meditation or Prayer Before Going to Vote

by Rabbi Michael Lerner
<http://www.tikkun.org/>The Tikkun Community

Thank You, the Power of Healing and Transformation in the Universe, 
that Your energy has moved through human beings in the past and 
inspired them to create democratic institutions that would give me 
and others this wonderful opportunity to participate in shaping our 
world.

I know that the outcome of this election will have consequences for 
all six billion people on the planet, and that if democratic norms 
were to be fully established that they too would be able to 
participate in shaping the decisions about how the world's resources 
should best be used. So I hereby take it upon myself to vote in a way 
that is sensitive to the needs of all the people of the planet, not 
just to those who are blessed to live in the richest and most 
powerful society.

I recognize and affirm the unity of all being, and the 
interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all people with each 
other and with the well-being of the planet itself.

As I approach this holy act, I recommit myself to the message 
revealed to the prophets and sages of old: that our highest task on 
earth is to bring more love and kindness, generosity and sanctity 
into the world, and that to do so we must vigorously pursue a world 
of justice and peace and avoid violence and hurting others directly 
or indirectly. May my votes actually contribute to these results.

Please give strength to those for whom I vote. If they are elected, 
let them actually contribute to achieving a world of greater peace, 
justice and love. If they are not elected, let my vote be one of the 
factors that contributes to empowering them to play a positive role 
in continuing the struggle for peace, justice and love, so that they 
represent my intentions and so that they do not personally fall back 
into despair or into personal opportunism and forget that they have 
the task of vigorously articulating the aspirations of those who were 
seeking through voting for them to bring more caring and more 
generosity into the world.

Give me the wisdom to understand those who do not vote in the way 
that I do. I already know that most people on this planet share with 
me the desire for a world of peace, justice, loving-kindness and 
caring. So it is hard for me to understand why they don't support the 
candidates who seem to represent those values. Please give me the 
wisdom to understand the complex psychological, social and political 
factors that could take fundamentally decent human beings and lead 
them into paths that may, I believe, lead to a world exactly the 
opposite of what they really want. And let that understanding empower 
me to be more compassionate in the way that I think and talk about 
those with whom I disagree, and more intelligent in finding ways to 
reach them, speak to their goodness, and bring them through my love 
and compassion for them to be able to see a better path to achieve 
the goals that they share with me.

From this point forward, I commit myself to seeing the good in all 
others, and to finding the decency and generosity in those who 
disagree with me, and to keep that in front of my consciousness even 
as I continue to disagree with the paths that they have chosen ÷ and 
let that understanding give me even greater energy to fight for the 
causes of social justice and peace.

Meanwhile, let me also have compassion for the leaders of movements 
and candidates for office whom I do support ÷ let me not judge them 
for their personal failings, for the ways that they are not in their 
PRIVATE LIVES the fullest possible embodiments of the ideals that 
they articulate. Yet let me simultaneously have the energy and 
commitment to hold them accountable in their PUBLIC ACTS to fighting 
even harder for social justice and peace and ecological sanity.

I know that my vote is only one little part of the whole, and 
nevertheless I will not belittle what I am doing today in going to 
vote. But neither will I use this vote as a way of excusing myself 
from having to do more. I commit myself to putting more of my time 
and more of my energy and more of my money into activities explicitly 
aimed at tikkun olam, the healing and transformation of our planet.

Please let me be witness to a dramatic surge of the world's energies 
toward love, justice, peace, nonviolence, spiritual awakening, and 
ecological sanity ÷ quickly and in my lifetime, and let it be so. 
Amen. Shalom. Salaam.

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with us!