Election Day is nigh upon us and my country will have a chance to drive a stake into the heart of the darkness we opted for just four years ago.  If we succeed with this impaling, it will only be a mere stake and will not mean the darkness has been obliterated. For example, the real darkness is a bifurcation of our soul into an “us” vs. “them” view of life, “republicans” vs. “democrats” being only one articulation of this cosmic death spiral.  Should we Progressives win the election, the temptation will be to gloat in victory and allow a vindictiveness to prevail in our heart.  If so, we will be merely continuing what we have alleged the Conservatives have been doing, “us vs them-ing.”  We will continue, therefore, to live out the phenomenon T.S. Eliot noted in a dysfunctional family that he described as, “united by the strife which divided them.”  (See Eliot’s play, “The Family Reunion.”) 

We are currently so polarized that regardless of the election’s outcome that issue will continue.  However, I admit that if Trump is re-elected that polarization will only get worse as his emotional/spiritual impoverishment thrives on having someone, individually or collectively, to “them.”  But if Biden should win this election, we Progressives will have to avoid the “tee-hee” response, gleefully enjoying a triumph to the point of “rubbing defeat in the nose” of Conservatives.  If these two ends of the political spectrum continue to be unified only by this divisive spirit, healing of the breach will not take place and ugliness will continue to abound. 

People think differently; but regardless of how differently they “think,” it is still “thinking” that they do.  The challenge when we encounter someone who thinks differently than we do, and therefore sees the world through a different set of eyes, is to slow down that torrid certainty of ours…take a pause…and offer a moment of respect, possibly in the form of a “silence” of some sort.  This “silence” can be as simple as not responding with the first thought that comes to our mind, perhaps even letting that thought go completely, and simply asking the other party, “Tell me more?” No thought we have is so important that it cannot be put on hold for a bit, maybe even until another day with another person.  But in the heat of conflict, our heart is teeming with our arsenal of verbal responses, most of which have the main purpose only of putting the other person “in their place.”  We will then be able to get on our pony, ride into the sunset, blowing smoke triumphantly from our pistol.  Oh, how sweet it is to be “right”…but usually for no purpose other than ego aggrandizement!