Hope is always on the ballot

Election Day is every day. Choose light. Choose love. Choose hope.

On Election night, I kept vigil until the last flicker of hope seemed to fade away.

I turned off the TV just after midnight and picked up a good book, then checked the results every half hour. My favorite senator, Sherrod Brown, lost. Ohio turned even redder. I prayed for Sherrod and his wife, Connie, my dear friend. My heart hurt.

I fell asleep reading Patriot by Alexi Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who was poisoned by Putin and later killed in prison by the Russian dictator’s thugs.

Around 3 a.m. I checked my phone and saw the final election results. Kamala Harris lost.

Strangely, I woke up hopeful. Not hope filled. I wasn’t filled with hope. I woke up willing to hope again. There’s a difference. As Nick Cave wrote, “Optimism is hope with a broken heart.” This election broke so many hearts.

Why hope today? Because more than 67 million people in this country voted for joy, hope, compassion, love and a better future for all over the fear, anger, hate, chaos and calamity offered by Trump who promises to diminish the rights and freedoms of women and minorities.

A friend texted me her despair: “How can we possibly reconcile what has happened to and in our country? And now the world!”

I, too, fear for the world, for the children of Ukraine and what Vladimir Putin will do to them next, and to all my dear friends and fans in Poland if he tries to take over their country, too.

When I meditated, peace found me. My friends in recovery taught me, “Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake.”

That doesn’t mean God voted for Trump any more than God voted for the Chargers when they beat our beloved Browns on Sunday.

It means there is One who has all power, and that One has never been the president. God wasn’t up for re-election. God is still in charge.

In his book Patriot, Navalny shares how he skipped over bargaining and despair and went right to acceptance to deal with prison life. He dedicated his life – and gave his life – to see a Russia governed by rule of law with independent courts and honest elections. He loved his country. It was his life’s work because, “I desperately want it to be free.”

I want America to be free, not just for some Americans, but for ALL Americans. I want equality and equity for gay people, transgender people, people of color, immigrants and women.

The morning after the election when I thought of how powerless, scared and alone every transgender person in America must feel today, I wept.

Navalny’s words fortified me. Before he died in prison in February, he wrote: “Having served my first year in prison I want to say the same thing I shouted to those who gathered outside the courthouse when they took me to the police van: ‘Don't be afraid. This is our country, and we only have one.’”

This is our country. And we only have one.

Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to hope.

For the next four years, we must each do more to. As Rumi wrote, “Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”

Even when you’re feeling baaad (my words, not his.)

The day after election, my friend Eric posted this lovely drawing by his 7-year-old daughter, Aurora. She wrote: “You are love. I am love. We are love.”

He wrote, “I am capable as ever to contribute to the good of this world. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”

We could all use a dose of that peace that surpasses all understanding. I find it often in the Prayer of Saint Francis. It’s the Duct Tape of all prayers. It offers a solution to every problem.

St. Francis of Assisi gave us a menu of choices in that prayer. It’s like those “Eat this, Not that” books. Once you see the clear, healthier choice, you take it.

“Lord, make me a channel of Your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me bring your love.

Where there is injury, the spirit of forgiveness.

Where there is discord, harmony.

Where there is error, truth.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there are shadows, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Master, Grant that I may seek to comfort, rather than to be comforted

to understand, than to be understood

to love than to be loved.”

It reads like a ballot, doesn’t it? That prayer turns every single day into Election Day.

We get to choose. We get to cast a vote for hope. A vote for harmony. A vote for love.

If you feel buried under all those red votes today, remember those powerful words by gay poet Dinos Christianopoulus:

They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds.

Let’s go people.

It’s time to grow.