The Most Important Thing We Can Do Today

It has been a long, strange, crazy, disheartening, occasionally encouraging, downright weird election season. And it all ends today. Hypothetically. Please God, let it end today. Tomorrow we should be able to take a collective breath and lower our controversial conversations to whether it's okay for people to be playing Christmas music in early November (It is, but does that mean one should?). 

But I have some bad news. It doesn't end today. This country will still be bitterly divided tomorrow. This election cycle has revealed an ugly stain of discord in our national dialogue. People of opposing viewpoints will not talk to one another. They won't even validate the right for their opponent to disagree. The campaign has also exposed the vile racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and other prejudices that are far more common than any of us would like to admit. None of that vanishes tomorrow.

That is why voting is not the most important thing that you and I can do today. The most important thing is to commit ourselves to the long, arduous, but redemptive work of loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. We must recapture the idea that we are together as a people. We are not going to agree on everything, we are not going to get our way on everything, and we are not right about everything. We must gather together and get to know those who are different from us. We must see the other as created in the image of God.

At the end of the day, the President, Congress, the Supreme Court, and our local governments can only do so much. For there to be a true change of tenor in this country, it's going to have to start at the grassroots level. We have to be a people who will bridge divides, a people who will stand up for those who are insulted and demeaned, a people who will protect the vulnerable. If we don't do that then it doesn't matter if Abraham Lincoln is elected President. Things are not going to get better if we put our good above the good all else.

I apologize. I don't want to be too preachy. But love your neighbor. Listen to the stories of those who are being demeaned and stand alongside them. Do not let hatred and fear run rampant. Find the humanity in people who disagree with you. Break bread with them. It doesn't mean you have to agree on everything, but if we come together and listen to each other rather than yell then it will make all of us better. For the literal love of God, love your neighbor. It is perhaps one of the most important things you will do this day or any other.