Election Day

This is a big day for America and the rest of the world. I think about my book, America in Therapy, and how far away we seem to be from embodying a politics based in a commitment to love and safe belonging for everyone, even as I know there are millions of people who do their very best to create a spirit of peace, inclusion and cooperation.

I think one of the biggest confrontations we face here in America and on planet earth is that we are really not separate from each other, no matter how much we might like to imagine we are, and how much it might feel safer to believe we can just take care of ourselves (whatever that means) and that can be the end of it. Everywhere we look the evidence is mounting that we are connected and dependent on everyone to survive here. We literally need each other to keep the air, water, and soil clean. There is no boundary we can enforce in the ocean or the sky to keep toxins out, no wall we can build or weapons we can create to keep pollution from floating or flying all around the globe. And we depend on people and governments everywhere not to proliferate more Weapons of Mass Destruction or use them.

It Is One World

We are an inextricable part of the Family of Humankind as much as we are part of our families of origin, our states, communities, and the Family of America. What we decide on election day and on any day, will contribute to the health or ill health of the ecosystem of all of humanity. Hatred and threats of war travel across the globe faster than wind and water. They can land on any shore and spread like a plague. Equally, a politics of peace, cooperation, caring, and a deep recognition of our total reliance on each other to survive, can travel at lightning speed and fertilize even the most depleted soil in the most distant lands– if we choose it.

This isn’t about party affiliation. It is about our collective future, about our sustainability as a species. There is as yet no political party I know of that promotes the enormous shift in priorities and consciousness we need to survive as humans. That said, I’ll vote in the direction of the greatest love and care, which I believe is the only hope for humanity to have any sustainable future at all.

It can feel like a huge confrontation– that we are connected to everyone and rely on everyone and therefore must think and act with the welfare of all of humanity and all living things as our number one priority, as the basis of our policies and actions, yet this could actually be the source of our greatest relief and joy.

When I was young, I wanted to believe I didn’t need anyone, because it was so painful to not have my need for love and belonging met. I developed lots of defenses that I thought would protect me. But none of us are islands, no matter what we’d like to believe. We are wired for love and connection, and thankfully the inner urge to move beyond my wall of defense and separation won out, and I am forever grateful.

The next step in our growth and evolution as the Family of America, the real healing for all our many ills, is to know that we can no longer allow ourselves to believe America is an island either. And the way to get there is to drop our defenses– the hatred, the blame and talk of war– and come together.

What we don’t heal here, we perpetuate not only for Americans but for all people everywhere. What we do heal here, we heal for the world.

I say this equally to Red and to Blue.

It is my hope and my prayer that we choose healing.

And in the meantime, may we weather this election in peace and safety for everyone.

Amen…