This essay originally appeared in the Common Good Monthly email. If you don’t already, sign up here for an original article, essay, or interview on the first Monday of each month.
From the Editor
One more thing before tomorrow
About half of Americans expected to vote this Election Day have already done so. Axios reported that, as of yesterday, 75 million Americans have cast their ballot. Whether or not you’re one of them, tomorrow is a day to watch. And there’s still more you can do.
The first is to hope. The second is to pray.
In an essay last week, Brendan Case and Tyler VanderWeele make a case for being hopeful this Election Day with a healthy dose of rational optimism, because we have good reason to do so. This resolute hope certainly pairs well with prayer.
And we need help praying. There is a reason so many prayers have been preserved and passed down for generations, recited again and again. When we don’t know what to say, there is always a place to start. In the foreword to Every Moment Holy, Vol. I, a volume of liturgical readings for a myriad of occasions, Andrew Peterson writes, “the first step is to remember — to remember the dream of Eden that shimmers at the edges of things, to remember that the madman on the corner was made in God’s image, to remember that work and play and suffering and celebration are all sentences in a good story being told by God, a story arcing its way to a new creation.”
For this Election Day, we can remember this, from Case and VanderWeele: “Even where we can’t find grounds for expecting the future to be bright, however, we can face that uncertainty with an attitude of resolute hope that, together, we can promote the common good.”
For this month’s newsletter, we’re sharing a liturgy from Every Moment Holy, Vol. III. From Jessica Smith Culver and Douglas McKelvey, a liturgy for Election Day. —Sarah Haywood, managing editor
If we are pleased with the results of
today’s election, let us yet in humility
remember that every earthly authority
must one day give way to your eternal rule—
so let us in grace love all our neighbors well.
Or, if we are disappointed, let us resist all
fear, anger, accusation, and bitterness,
but instead renew our trust in you—
and let us in grace love all our neighbors well.
Whatever the outcome of this election,
let our citizenship and our hope be rooted
first in your heavenly kingdom, that we might
live in exile here as winsome ambassadors of our
soon-returning King—
always in grace loving all our neighbors well.
This liturgy is from Every Moment Holy, Vol. III: The Work of the People. Shared with permission from Rabbit Room Press. You can find more liturgies like these at EveryMomentHoly.com.
