For the past week I’ve been waking up around 5:00 am. I’m not sure why. Nature isn’t calling, the cats aren’t jumping on me and the sun is definitely not shining in my eyes. And yet, there I am, lying in the dark, awake.
Usually, I just lie there, waiting for at least 6:00 to roll around before I get up. Sometimes I even drift off again but this morning, I got myself I decided to drag myself up and go downstairs. After my morning routine of feeding Izzie, making the coffee and running through a lesson or two on Duolingo, I resumed watching the movie I’d started last evening while Dave was at choir practice; “Star Wars; The Force Awakens.”
I loved the three original Star Wars movies. They were full of action, wit and best of all the good guys always won in the end, despite the best attempts of the Empire. This newest episode has all those elements with the difference being that following the destruction of the Empire, within a generation, a new evil threat, the First Order. With clearly defined good guys and bad guys, it is easy for the viewer to choose a side and root for good to triumph.
As I watched the film for the second time, it was easy for me to put the current political climate in the context of the story, because that’s what I do. For me, it was clear to cast the roles of heroes and villains to the current Presidential candidates, as I suppose it would be for most folks, although their choice might be different from mine.
I can’t remember an election in my voting lifetime that has created such a dichotomy of players. I find it frightening that while my perception has determined one candidate to be qualified and the other so ill-suited for the position that others have come to an equal and opposite conclusion. This fear doesn’t come from a place where I question my judgement, because I don’t. Rather, it is because if so many of us stand on either sides of such a deep chasm, I wonder how we will ever come together when the choice is finally made next month. With feelings running so deep and strong, my fear is that healing will not come easily nor quickly.
In times like these, I believe the only good choice has to be prayer. Historically, it has been war; nothing has rallied the American psyche like a having a common enemy to hate. But, if it’s healing that we need, there is nothing on this earth that will bring us together to heal our collective wounds like millions of voices joined in prayer to whatever name you call God, in whatever tradition you practice. God, Jesus, Allāh, Jehovah, Father, Mother, Spirit; in their truest natures they are love. My prayer for us is that will look to love to light our path towards healing. I know I will sleep better for it.