[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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