If we don’t do as well with candidates and ballot measures as we hope, PLEASE no one curl up in a tight, demoralized snarl of mourning for months upon months this time.
And even if we see necessary victories, please no one think, “great, we’ve done everything that needs doing, now back to a comfortable pleasant life.”
DON’T LET THE MOMENTUM DROP no matter what the outcome.
Build upon achievements, learn from losses, and keep - on - going.
Decades and generations of boots-on-the-ground real-world volunteers in neighborhods, in unions, and in politics have proven that building better societies is no more straight-line a sequence than the evolution of our species on the planet. There is no magic formula. And no permanent victory unless we make it so.
In our own time, we’ve learned the hard way that reaching out to connect with our neighbors only in campaign home-stretch months, inevitably provokes tough questions:
“Why are you only interested in talking with me now? If you really wanted my voice included, not just to get my vote, wouldn’t you have been talking with me all along?
“Wouldn’t I have seen the proof of how good your ideas are in the results of your working together with us to meet needs right here where we all live? Well, where are those good results you claim your ideas build? Where’s the proof your ideas work?”
Truth is, repelling evil by doing better has no isolated season.
At its heart, it’s a year-round, aware part of our ongoing lives.
Our neighbors are counting on us to not wait for government to be leaders. Government never is leaders. Government is only the mechanism by which societies collectively identify shared needs —for good or ill— and devise ways to deal with them.
For good or for ill...
If WE don’t create, innovate, and prove good ways —where we work, where we go to school, where we enjoy what our communities can offer, where we take part in local mechanisms for studying needs and applying the science of experimentation to address them— WHO WILL?
Corporations? Opportunists? Demagogues?
Or can it be us...
Every real-world community is a laboratory in microcosm just as much as it is people trying to build and enjoy good lives day by day. With every moment we build and enjoy together, getting to know and appreciate the strengths of our differences, we ARE stronger together.
Those strengths and differences cannot be grasped or linked arms with on the page or screen. Organized, yes. Recognized, a little. But words we write and read are only symbols of bodily sensation, muscular action, and intelligent grasp.
The images we see may move us with thought and emotion, but not with actual blood, sweat, dirt, blisters, clean-flowing rivers, tall shading trees, safe homes and streets, or gardens of flowers, fruit and veg to feed body and soul...
And not with making music and food together and dancing, either.
And not with the touch of new friends’ caring hands.
,
I’m not Muslim, I’m from another heritage that has always agreed we can only repel evil by that which is better.
Even if we see good victories from this election, rejoicing over the fears and angers of other Americans isn’t going to be better. And it isn’t going to be enough to keep progress going.
And if we are disappointed with this election, mourning and shouting and embracing demoralization is only going to embolden what’s worse.
No matter what happens, repel evil by that which is better.
Join new friends from this campaign and continue exploring and learning about what the neighborhoods of your local district need from local government, local school districts, free clinics, interfaith councils, youth arts and sciences projects, environmental clean-up, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless...
Take what you learn and put it to work shoulder to shoulder with friends around you. It just may be that people you never thought could be friends and allies only needed to see this from you in order to believe in you.
We are all in this together.
No matter what happens, take courage and take joy in everything you did and everything you can keep doing in the real world —where we all really have to live— and not in words alone.
No matter what happens, let your life speak.
Repel evil by that which is better.