[Dialogue] THINK, PRAY, VOTE

Janice & Abe Ulangca aulangca at stny.rr.com
Wed Nov 3 12:04:39 EST 2004


Thanks, David and Lin.  Even with painful election results, this from Michael Lerner is wonderful -- broad of spirit and healing.  Janice Ulangca

It was good to spend election day with a car-load of fine folks, tramping up and down the hills of Avoca, PA (near Scranton), knocking on doors and cheering people on to vote in this mostly Democratic community.  We were peace and justice people; our driver spent 6 months in federal prison after giving himself up for arrest at a peaceful demonstration protesting the "School of Americas" in Fort Benning, GA.  (The school, and its successor clone -- the "Western Hemisphere" something -- train military from Latin America who have been implicated in many human rights abuses, including the murder of priests and nuns who have stood up for the poor.  The school is funded by the U.S. taxpayer, to our shame.)  Organizers hoped for 1,000 volunteers in the Scranton/Wilkes Barre counties.  They were scattered among  more than a dozen coordinating sites, so we never saw them all together, but I imagine they got that many.  Carloads from Binghamton, Albany, Ithaca, and nearby towns got our assignments through Citizen Action, one of 33 organizations in a national coalition under ACT -- America Coming Together (to defeat George Bush).  In Avoca, not a large town, there were perhaps 50 ACT people on the streets, locals and out of towners.  We all had white hats with "America Votes, 2004".   Because of legal constraints with this effort, we could not tell people who to vote for.  But when they volunteered support for Kerry, we could certainly cheer!  Scranton/Wilkes Barre is the one Democratic area in the middle of PA.  We got lots of heartfelt thanks for being there from people we met.  People smiled at a small black dog with red white and blue neckerchief and "sandwich" signs on each side proclaiming "Canines for Kerry."  His human friend walked him up and down Main Street for several hours.   J.


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David & Lin Zahrt 
  To: Dialogue at wedgeblade.net 
  Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 9:04 AM
  Subject: [Dialogue] THINK, PRAY, VOTE


  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!

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