My soul feels cluttered.
By the time you read this I can safely write, “Yesterday was
Election Day.” Of course, I have no idea how that all turned out. I don’t even
know if we know yet how that all turned out. I remember being very pregnant on
Election Day 2000 and wondering in the subsequent days if my Christmas baby
would be born before we knew whom the new president was. So, I’m not saying
it’s all over just because it’s Nov. 9. I’m just fairly sure that the election
itself is safely behind us.
"I want to have the wisdom to know that my neighbor is my compatriot, no matter how she voted. Further, my neighbor is to be loved, genuinely and without reservation."
And my soul feels like a jumbled mess. So much input all the time
has bombarded my inner self so that it’s mushy pulp. For months, it seems, all
sorts of media have provided a steady barrage of information. Some of it was
news. Most of it has long dissolved into dissonant noise.
Today, will there be quiet? I dearly hope so.
Today, will there be stillness of soul? I aim to make it so.
In the days before Election Day, so much noise rose to a
crescendo, yet I was barely aware as the intensity built. I took in information
at every turn, but rarely did I let anything go. I’m left with a ringing in my
ears and throbbing behind my eyes, the result of a constant blur of tweets and
Facebook posts, newscasts, and radio ads (No radio shows, thank you. I know
better than to subject myself to those.).
Today, I want only to create space. I want to free up brain space
and emotional energy, to let go of election angst and to begin to see the world
anew. Whatever the result, it is what it is. Whatever the result, I was bought
with a price and so I live in freedom. I want to move forward today under the
power of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
I want to have the wisdom to know that my neighbor is my
compatriot, no matter how she voted. Further, my neighbor is to be loved,
genuinely and without reservation. I want to be wise enough to love without
fear of what the future holds.
I want to have right judgment, to clear my head of competing
voices and to incline my ear to the voice of the Lord. My soul will lose its
clutter when it fills with Him.
I want to have the fortitude to meet people where they are
without bringing a complicated agenda to the meeting.
I love to learn, but my knowledge sources for these next few
weeks will be voices of old. I want to back away from “reading” on my phone or
my computer and, instead, to dig deep and read long in a book, preferably a
classic. Shaking off the hangover that a glut of always updating information
has left, I resolve to follow a train of thought for much longer than 40
characters or 300, 500, or even 1,000 words. My brain is longing for a meaty
novel where good triumphs over evil and the reader is clear about who is good
and who is evil.
As I sweep away the clutter of the election, I kneel. There in my
living room, away from pundits and proclamations, I bow humbled before the true
King. This world is passing. Daily, I grow closer to the day I meet my Lord. As
big and life-changing and earth shattering as these past days have been
heralded to be, they, too, pale in the light of the day I die. How then, shall
I live, in order to die in His friendship? God, grant me the piety to know you
are Lord and Ruler.
Today, the same as yesterday, the same as tomorrow, I stand in
awe and wonder of the Lord. The world outside my door is aflame with glorious
color and light. God is in His heaven. He is perfect goodness, perfect power
and perfect love. It’s a good day to go for a long walk, to breathe deep of His
glory and to exhale into uncluttered peace.
Foss, whose website is elizabethfoss.com, is a freelance
writer from Northern Virginia.