A Meditation for Election Week
This week many of us who reside in the United States are overwhelmed by destabilizing fears and anxieties that surround this election. As we all navigate the turbulent landscape, I am brought back to the words of one of our previous guest facilitators, Jessica Hamilton. Reflecting on public policy and the work of Howard Thurman, Jessica invited us: “You have to register your beliefs. If we follow Christ, we have to consider what is happening politically and in our world. Ask: Would I not want to be in the circumstance that my vote is putting someone in?”
For many of you, I have seen you embody deep care for what is happening politically in our world. I have heard you express that much of your anxiety is rooted in the fear that many of those who say they follow Christ will not consider the circumstances their vote is putting someone in. Many of us are left uneasy with the call of peace and justice we feel as Christ-followers and the disconnect with many others who “follow Christ” too. Crippling anxiety, anger, and fear take over in response to the unpredictable, incongruent, and inconsistent religious and political landscape.
The destabilizing sense of political chaos unfortunately is not a new phenomenon. In 1953, just before the turning point of Brown v. Board of Education and while serving as the Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, Howard Thurman, a grandfather in the civil rights movement, published this meditation:
“I seek the enlargement of my heart that there may be room for Peace. Already there is room enough for chaos. There is in every day’s experience much that makes for confusion and bewilderment….But the need of my heart is for room for Peace: Peace of mind that inspires singleness of purpose; Peace of heart that quiets all fears and uproots all panic; Peace of spirit that filters through all confusions and robs them of their power. These I see now. I know that here in this quietness my life can be infused with Peace. Therefore, before God, I seek the enlargement of my heart at this moment, that there may be room enough for Peace.”
— Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart, 1953
Thurman’s meditation is the call for peace in the midst of chaos. The type of peace he is talking about is not one of avoidance, indifference, resignation, or absence of strife. Rather, the peace Thurman invites us toward is one that quiets the panic and sustains us for the difficult work ahead.
My hope is that this week, in our own dysregulated states, that as the Beloved Community we would each draw towards this type of peace.
“Peace of mind that inspires singleness of purpose;
Peace of heart that quiets all fears and uproots all panic;
Peace of spirit that filters through all confusions and robs them of their power.”
May we all continue to find this peace through our meditations, prayers, and pleas.
May we all continue to find this peace in the uncertainty.
May we all continue to find this peace that leads us to hope.
