What To Do After the Election

It’s November 6, 2024.

Which means we had an election.

I had some anxiety about it and prayed for a specific outcome. On the morning after, I wonder how this could be the outcome. The option between these two candidates seemed so obvious.

What can we do now? Elections are a constant reminder that we can only control so much.

I had lunch with a clergy friend of mine recently. He asked me how I was feeling about the election. I told him I was feeling anxious.
 
Then he had to say the pastor-y thing. You know, that thing that should be obvious but I need the reminder because I can get stuck in my own anxiety about things that I forget are obvious.

Pastors can be so annoying.

Anyway, he said that no matter who wins or what happens, I may be relieved or I may be in mourning, but we still have a mission. 

Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

No matter what happens, that’s the mission.

It feels true to me that the forces of hate are prevalent. There’s the scapegoating of immigrants. The United States and Puerto Rico have been called garbage. And one candidate thinks that people who disagree with him are the “enemy within.”

And he won by a landslide.

But here we are. And there are things we can do.

But first, if you need to, please take the time to grieve. If you need to get away from the news and social media, please do so. Hug your loved ones a littler tighter. Feel free to cry. Because this is hard.

And then let’s love more boldly. To love our neighbors means to not scapegoat them. It means refusing to call people or where they live garbage. It means to love our enemies. 

As Kamala Harris recently said, it means to recognize that people who simply disagree with us are not our enemies. 

They are our parents, siblings, coworkers, and neighbors. Loving them means, as best we can, inviting them to the table. 

A few months ago, I went off script in a sermon and said something that felt profound – if I do say so myself.

I said, “Being a Christian is hard.”

So what do we do after the election? We love more.

But loving myself is hard enough. I’m also supposed to love my neighbor? Who includes even my enemies? What does loving myself, my neighbor, and my enemy even mean?

No matter what has happened, for me, those seem to be the most important questions. 

But I also don’t want to move too fast to love. Realistically, we need time to grieve. And then it’s time to go on the mission Jesus sends us on – to live as best we can in the spirit of love.