A Mennonite pastor has organized a nation-wide communion service on election day. I enclose the CNN on-line link to the article about this effort and its rationale: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/03/my-take-on-election-day-proclaiming-my-loyalty-to-jesus/?hpt=hp_c1

I’m very impressed. An event like this helps us to remember that “this is not about us”, at least not in an exclusive sense. There is an “otherness” present in the world that we often forget about in our day to day life and certainly in the intensity of political debate. The event is a simple, brief bowing of our heads (literally or figuratively) and recognizing this “otherness” (Otherness). It is a simple shift of focus for a moment and recognition that we are finite creatures in a complex world and that a Mystery that is beyond our comprehension is present in our life, individually and collectively. A refrain of mine is, “Mental illness is a reference problem.” In ceremonies such as this we offer a momentary deference to an external reference point that is sorely lacking in our world consciousness.

I want to share a poem by W. H. Auden that is relevant to gestures like this:

Defenseless under the night,
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
ironic points of light
Flash out whever the Just
Exchange their messages.
May I,composed like them
of Eros and Dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

May we each day, in word and deed, show an affirming flame.  It is so easy to do otherwise.

W. H. Auden “Sept 1, 1939”