I voted today

I voted today. I always find it such an odd experience. You go, you stand in line, you get your ballot, you take the time to fill it out, you stick it in the machine, you get your "I voted" sticker so you can trumpet your civic virtue in the streets. And I always feel like—what possible difference can my one vote make? Is it worth my going through this bother? But of course that's the strange thing about the system: my one vote does become part of these numbers we'll be tracking on election night.

I don't know how to articulate the thought that's vaguely pulsating in my mind. I want to wax almost mystical about this—about the importance of the one; that this vast multitude of voters is made up of individual voters like me who each take the time to do something that in and of itself doesn't seem like it could actually make the slightest difference in affecting the multitude but all together become the multitude. "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass." It's a cliché, but it fits.

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God of the nations—

I feel an urge to pray, but I don't know what to say.
"Let Obama win" or "Let the Democrats win" sounds... I dunno... tacky. Partisan. Beneath your dignity somehow.
But you tell us to lay the desires of our hearts before you. So there you have mine.

Anyway, what I want in the big scheme isn't an Obama victory, per se, or a farther-reaching Democratic victory.

What I want is a government that will make peace, that will care for the poor and the needy, that will do justice, that will practice wise stewardship of the environment, that will create sound policies for the ordering of our common life in this country and for the ordering of our relations with a larger global community.

I voted today for a slate of candidates who I hope will work for those things.
If they win, then I pray that they'll actually govern well.
And if they lose, then I pray that the winners will be moved to govern well.

In Christ's name, amen.