Image source: Photo at Yvonne's taken by Merlina McGovern
This past Sunday, my UU minister asked us to think back to the week prior. What had we worked on saving? Were we living our faith? Were we actively going out and saving the world? And, because, like Jack Torrance, all work and no play makes for a very dull life, she asked us what we had savored of the world in the past week.
Let’s start with the harder question first. What had I saved? What a big question. My immediate thought was that I’m just a small, underemployed middle-aged woman. How could I possibly save anything? Then I actually thought about the actual question. Yes. Yes, I had done world-saving work that week. I had done one of my most important duties as a citizen. I had walked mine and my husband’s mail-in ballots to our town hall. This upcoming election is one of the most significant ones our country has engaged in. Especially after an election where the transfer of power was not peaceful and not guaranteed. Yes, indeed, I had done my part to save our democracy by voting.
Yes, I’m voting in a deeply blue state. So, what does my vote matter? But every vote matters. Especially for local issues. It matters who I vote in at the town level and onto the school board. It matters if I vote to support low-wage workers. It matters if I vote to help promote transparency in our local government. And my daughter watches me and my husband as we fill in our ballots. She listens as we discuss the political initiatives that are up for a vote. She will take what she has learned and keep it with her wherever she goes, including if she moves to a deep red state.
And the word that I spread, as I tell my few hundred social media followers that I voted, and as I link to Vote.gov in this blog post to share an official link where you can find out how to register to vote in your state, that also helps me to save the world in my own small way.
And it is good work, even if it is small work. Do not take your ability to vote for granted. As I walked to my ballot box, I listened to a fascinating Throughline podcast about the history of how the people of our country use to vote. For the most part, we no longer have to fight through opposition parties to cast a very public vote. Don’t take that for granted. Vote!
As for savoring the world, two moments come back to me as I thought back on my past week. On a crisp weekday evening, my daughter and I walked up the very large hill in our neighborhood to catch a glimpse of the Tsuchinshan-ATLAS comet. Huffing and puffing at the top of the hill, I had no idea where to look in the sky filled with light pollution. But I asked the friendly strangers all gathered on the hill where to look, and they pointed. I zoomed in with my phone camera, and there it was! We all stood together in community as the supermoon glowed bright, and we basked in the brilliant starshine. It was magnificent.
I ended the week with an amazing dinner out with my husband in Boston. The food at Yvonne’s was scrumptious, and the vibes were immaculate, as we sipped cocktails beneath cheeky paintings of Audrey Hepburn and Bill Murray. But the best part of the evening was the conversation with the love of my life, the man I had been married to for nineteen years. Time that has gone by in the blink of an eye.
And so, that marvelous prompt from our minister made me realize that this amazing world of ours needs saving because it has so many life-affirming experiences to savor. And I am read for both the saving and the savoring.
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