I am making a public confession: I stopped voting 32 years ago. I thought I was doing that to be able to be a neutral witness to the differences and preferences in the world. A few days ago I had a profound sense I actually stopped voting because I had stopped trusting in my ability to choose wisely. You see, I had voted for Bill Clinton.
Even if the reason for my stopping voting may have not been what I thought it was, there has been a lot gleaned in these decades of living as an apolitical person. The definition of apolitical means politically neutral; without political attitudes, content, or bias. I might add, “in as much as is humanly possible.”
I stopped watching or reading news.
I stopped engaging in arguments about view.
I stopped thinking there was a better or worse way, a right or wrong candidate and I watched the great divide that happens in the world of thought as it occurs without benefit of the depth of heart that understands wholesome and unwholesome as situational, not as concrete absolutes.
We want things to be absolute.
We want to know if we make the “right” choice only good will come.
We want freedom from pain.
As I first woke during the wee hours of the morning the map showing the election results included Wisconsin and Michigan among the few states that had not yet been completely tabulated. The next time I looked, Michigan was still undeclared but Wisconsin was red and Donald Trump had been declared the winner of the election.
That map…. seeing so much red and so little blue. It has only been in the past few months that I knew which political party was red and which was blue. I had to use a mnemonic device to recall that the Republican party is represented by red (R-R).
The color of the states does not tell the entire truth. The numbers of voters listed (at 9:23 am EST) was 71 million people voting red and 66 million people voting blue. Thinking about that brought to mind the color purple. Purple paint consists of red to blue paint at a ratio 3:4.
I looked up the symbolic meanings of the color purple on a website called Very Well Mind:
- People often describe the color purple as mysterious, spiritual, and imaginative.
Purple is also thought to represent wisdom and spirituality, as though a rare and mysterious nature perhaps causes it to seem connected to the unknown, supernatural, and divine.
Different shades of purple have different spiritual meanings. For instance, light purples are associated with light-hearted, romantic energies, while darker shades can represent sadness and frustration. In some parts of Europe, purple is associated with death and mourning.
In the U.S., the Purple Heart is among the highest honors for bravery in military service. The award, originally called the Badge of Military Merit, was created in 1782 by George Washington to give to soldiers for commendable action. The color represents courage and bravery.
My prayer is for the 71 million people who feel like they won today to realize that they have relatives and friends and neighbors who voted blue — people they love and respect — who desperately need their compassion and kindness and wisdom.
And for the 66 million people who feel like they lost today to realize that they have relatives and friends and neighbors who voted red — people they love and respect — who need their compassion and kindness and wisdom.
As I was lying there pondering purple, the first stanza in the song Storms Never Last, by Waylon Jennings came to mind:
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Storms never last, do they, babe?
Bad times all pass with the winds
Your hand in mine stills the thunder
And you make the sun want to shine
I know there is mounting concern that we are all being manipulated by bots and trolls so that we do not see things the same way because we do not see (and hear) the same things. If that is really happening, and it likely is, it is dangerous.
Regardless, we are each capable of realizing that no perspective is capable of seeing everything clearly and the more sure I am that I know how it really is the more dangerous I am to myself and the world.
Think about the history of our nation related to slavery.
Think about the history of our planet related to the Holocaust.
Think about the history of your connections with your relatives, friends, and neighbors who voted a different color than you. What might he or she see or hear or think or feel that adds to your own wisdom and kindness and compassion?
Please, brothers and sisters of the red and blue, remember that our flag is red, white, and blue. Perhaps another post on the spiritual meaning of the color white will be forthcoming, but for now, I am dreaming of the color purple….
Dare to live with me in an apolitical world. A world in which we care about one another and navigate challenges without political attitudes, content, or bias — in as much as is humanly possible — a world that is already filled with purple hearts.
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