Final Election Recommendation

I have been thinking for the past few days about what to write that might, just might, convince someone to vote the way I think they should next Tuesday. This election is so important, I guess I think my preferences are important, too.

Then I wondered what new I have to add, and who I will convince anyway to change their mind. Probably no one, and don't we have enough partisan pushing and pulling around us as it is?

Tonight I attended (actually sang in the choir at) the Evensong service at Christ Episcopal Church in Shaker Heights. The service celebrated the "Feast of Richard Hooker," of whom I am ashamed to say I knew nothing.  Turns out he was one of the seminal thinkers and theologians of the Anglican movement. According to Fr. Peter Faass, his great contribution was to describe a middle way by which the waring religious factions during the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth could work to resolve their differences. His ability to define that middle way and the willingness, even if reluctant, of competing powers to allow the middle way's process to guide their deliberations brought a new unity to England, and set the stage for England to become the greatest power in the world for the next several centuries. The homily made the obvious move to the current political situation in our country, and urged us all to seek a middle way of dealing with our differences.

In one of our prayers tonight we prayed, "Grant that we may maintain that middle way, not as a compromise for the sake of peace, but as a comprehension for the sake of the truth." I am not sure how to understand that exactly. "Comprehension" could refer to being complete ("comprehensive") or to understanding ("comprehend"). But either way, it results in truth. In other words, we seek a middle way not for peace alone, but in order to be complete, and to completely understand. Partisanship dares neither see the whole picture nor to understand it.

People at odds with each other work together because something greater than their own convictions and commitments compels them to seek mutual understanding with their adversaries. They fight for what they believe, but they never close the door on their opponents or stop listening to them. Out of that mutual understanding there may, in time, arise a new truth neither side could see before they tried the middle way. And that new truth can be the basis for new kinds of greatness.

I won't tell you again who to vote for. Not now. It's time, I feel, to start looking forward to what we Americans can and will do together beginning, I trust, next Wednesday morning. Hope for it, work for it, if it be your way pray for it. It's the most promising way ahead for the homeland we share.