Election Reflection.... or the Day After

Our entire family blogs, so it's been interesting to see and share one anothers thoughts on the developments of the past 48 hrs. I, too, had to put my thoughts into print on the day after this now "historic" election.

As my family is an interesting and tolerantly loving "camp divided", I found myself thinking about what I would most want to say about the election results. and my chief inspiration ironically came from the election night speeches of both candidates which were, in my mind, eloquent and unifying.

The beauty of the American democratic process is that we all have this opportunity every four years to stop and evaluate what it is we value in leadership and direction for our nation. We align ourselves in various and sundry ways behind the national and local candidates and ballot issues and we vote. Prior to that vote, things can get a bit heated at times; we wrangle, debate, campaign, and agonize about "what the other guy" will be doing on Nov. 4.

However, the beauty of our system is also what happens on the Wednesday AFTER we vote. My students were wrestling with this today. Teenage emotional highs and lows were all over the hallways of my school. Kids were proclaiming loudly about which foreign countries they might need to move to (next week!) and even some rather darkly inappropriate things were said about what could "happen" to our President elect prior to Jan. 20th. That's when I had to speak up and remind them about what happens in America on the day AFTER the election. That's where the true beauty of our democracy shines its brightest and best... where we become collectively "Americans" again... divisions aside, and look around and say, "So how will I be involved in making my country stronger and better? Where do I fit in the next four years? or (in a very Lutheran sense, ironically) What does this mean?"

That's not a pie-in-the-sky thing to do... to reflect. To stop and think, to realize one can't spend the next four years being either euphorically the victor or the angry defeated. Because to do that, devalues what the process is all about, exercising one's citizenship is as much about what we do in the four years between elections as what we do at the polls on one day. So I find the day (and days) following to be ones where I must examine what I will do and where I will find ways to make a difference as a citizen.

This campaign was long, and perhaps the very length of it explains why we all feel so jubilant that it's finished. It also might explain why feelings seem to be running so deep on both "sides" afterward. My prayer is that all Americans can manage not to be inclined to view the results the way we do our sporting events, with a winner-loser mentality. Politics are not a competitive sporting event, they are a reflective event, a visionary event, and a radical exercise in what it means to be citizen owners and cultivators of our democracy. We are a marvel to the rest of the world as we particpate in the process every 4 years. May God bless us all as we continue to grow our democracy; it's always a work in progress!

This is my favorite poem about what Election Day means... I have it on the bulletin board in my classroom all year round. Leave it to Whittier to put it all together so clearly.

The Poor Voter on Election Day

by John Greenleaf Whittier (1852)

The proudest now is but my peer, The highest not more high; To-day, of all the weary year, A king of men am I. To-day alike are great and small, The nameless and the known My palace is the people’s hall, The ballot-box my throne! Who serves to-day upon the list Beside the served shall stand; Alike the brown and wrinkled fist, The gloved and dainty hand! The rich is level with the poor, The weak is strong to-day; And sleekest broadcloth counts no more Than homespun frock of gray. To-day let pomp and vain pretence My stubborn right abide; I set a plain man’s common sense Against the pedant’s pride. To-day shall simple manhood try The strength of gold and land The wide world has not wealth to buy The power in my right hand! While there’s a grief to seek redress, Or balance to adjust, Where weighs our living manhood less Than Mammon’s vilest dust, — While there’s a right to need my vote A wrong to sweep away, Up! clouted knee and ragged coat! A man’s a man to-day!