An Election Week Message from Dean Moore
Dear Beloved Community,
How can we be present with one another during Election Week, especially with people who hold strong and diverse views and people observing in many countries? Millions of people have already voted, and I hope huge numbers vote on November 3. People know that the future of the United States and global relationships are at stake. Yet, people have different views of that future. This is a time to act on your convictions and give others space to act on theirs, holding one another in dignity if not in agreement or easy conversation. STH student groups and Religion and Conflict Transformation will offer opportunities for reflective conversations over the next month. Students can look up the links to these events in this week’s issue of Collegium.
How can we also be present with a raging world? At the same time that political contests are flaming, people are facing the pressures of COVID-19 on themselves and on the people they love, added to the exhaustion of shut-downs and quarantines, made more ominous by quickly rising cases on every continent. We are surrounded by hard news: a large earthquake has shaken Turkey and Greece; wildfires continue across the Western US; another hurricane has battered the Gulf Coast. Terror attacks have burst out in France and Pakistan and Austria, immigrant children in the US are still suffering separation from their families and a loss of their human rights, and Walter Wallace, Jr., an African American man was killed by police in Philadelphia, followed by violence in the streets. How can we stop the cycles of violence and ecological abuse that create and multiply these tragedies? How can we be present to the hard realities and the real possibilities for justice and change? We can only be present when we face them and allow them to critique and transform us with the force of truth, even as we listen intently and discern paths shaped by our multiple truths in the search for common ground (Howard Thurman).
How can we be present with the Holy? This may be a week to focus on practices that keep you centered, whether contemplative prayer, the morning prayers of your tradition, Buddhist walking meditation, close reading of scripture, or jogging. Many of us will be impassioned this week to celebrate, rage, mourn, or kick ourselves into action. As we all do what we most need, I encourage you to pause frequently to center, so your celebrations, ragings, mourning, and actions can be present to the moment and the future to which it points.
May justice and democracy survive, and may we have courage and strength to keep building!
With deep respect,
Mary Elizabeth Moore, Dean (she/her/hers)