Staying Loving in a World Where Hate Wins Elections

Daily writing prompt

What are your biggest challenges?

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As 2024 enters, I am already dreading the election commercials and the ugliness of politics in an election year. Since 2020, it seems that the United States has been the epicenter of Hate, as state representatives redraw voting maps that dilute or reduce the power of one vote, one voice. I have seen the rights of women and the progress of people of color regress as the backlash to gains made over the last 60 years. To read of people espousing that only white Christians should be considered “true” Americans shakes me to my core and that America should become a Christian nation, which is a theocracy, not a democracy.

Yes, I would love to see America as more loving to people whom they see as different across race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religion. In that sense, a nation that embraces every person regardless of their quirks and idiosyncrasies would represent a Christian nation, but without the fears of “sharia” based on someone’s incorrect interpretation of the Bible or knowledge of who Jesus is and what he represents.

Jesus is about love, regardless of social categories. Just ask the Samaritan woman at the well and the Syrophoenician woman who needed healing for her daughter. He sat to eat with tax collectors and other sinners, allowing a woman of dubious character to pour oil on his feet and kiss them because he saw her love for his acceptance of her and the forgiveness of her sins. Representing Jesus means showing compassion and love, for we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So, I will stay loving, no matter how challenging, and I will not judge others because they vote differently from me. I hope that in 2024, the Supreme Court will negate all gerrymandering that, in effect, causes people to lose their voices. I hope that the election will be civil and not filled with racist, sexist, homophobic, nationalist hate rhetoric that seeks to divide us so that elections can be won. I hope that we can remember that America was created as a democracy, a place of freedom of speech and religion and protest and being different, home to those brave enough to be different, and a land that allows us the freedom to live and love in our own ways, as long as we don’t hurt others in any way.

Happy New Year to you and your family. May 2024 bring health, wealth (however you define it), and wisdom to us all.