Can we embrace humanity instead of iconoclastic hallucinations?

I ear­ly vot­ed yes­ter­day. There was a long line at the cour­t­house. I saw peo­ple I knew and peo­ple I didn’t. A pro­found sense of affir­ma­tion hung over the entire assem­bly. We live in a rep­re­sen­ta­tive repub­lic. This is what we do, regard­less of par­ty or prej­u­dice. We have the priv­i­lege of assert­ing our pref­er­ences on the collective.

As I walked in, peo­ple who had vot­ed walked out a side door. I looked at their faces. In that moment, I was remind­ed of a recent arti­cle by esteemed rab­bi, Sharon Brous, “Train Yourself to Always Show Up,” adapt­ed from her best-sell­ing book, “The Amen Effect.”

The premise of the arti­cle rests upon the foun­da­tion of a pas­sage in the ancient Jewish text called the Mishna describ­ing an annu­al pil­grim­age to Jerusalem. Pilgrims would climb the steps of the Temple Mount, encir­cling its sacred plaza by walk­ing coun­ter­clock­wise. But those peo­ple who were bro­ken in some way, by ill­ness, tragedy, or sor­row, would enter the plaza and walk clock­wise, meet­ing oth­ers face-to-face.

During the rit­u­al walk, each per­son who encoun­tered some­one walk­ing against the flow would enquire “what hap­pened to you, why does your heart ache?” An expla­na­tion of the person’s suf­fer­ing would be fol­lowed by an offered bless­ing, “May the Holy One com­fort you. You are not alone.”

Brous asserts that this rit­u­al is a deep recog­ni­tion of our shared human­i­ty. “It is an expres­sion of both love and sacred respon­si­bil­i­ty to turn to anoth­er per­son in her moment of deep­est anguish and say, ‘Your sor­row may scare me, it may unset­tle me. But I will not aban­don you. I will meet your grief with relent­less love.’”

I have no idea how the elec­tion is going to end up. I do know that the prospect of relent­less love is more appeal­ing than the hydrants of hatred that have been wash­ing over us of late. Regardless of the out­come, I hope we can open our arms, rather than cross them.

I spent last week in the Helene-rav­aged moun­tains of North Carolina. Living here next to tor­na­do alley, I have seen some bleak after-storm scenes, but I have nev­er been immersed in a swath of dev­as­ta­tion so pro­found. A month after the blast, the region’s peo­ple are still in shock. The first ques­tion among reunit­ed neigh­bors is “are you ok?” Most imme­di­ate answers are yes, but the storm trans­formed peo­ple, places, and liveli­hoods for­ev­er. No doubt you have seen pho­tographs of Helene’s tem­pest and its after­math. I snapped a few furtive frames, but it is impos­si­ble to ren­der three-dimen­sion­al tragedy in two dimen­sions. The expe­ri­ence is still heavy on my mind and heart.

The words uttered among neigh­bors in the destroyed towns of west­ern North Carolina evoke the same ques­tion uttered at the Temple Mount 2,000 years ago: “Are you ok?”

As I looked into the eyes of the peo­ple walk­ing out the side door at the cour­t­house, I con­jured the same inter­rog­a­tive. “Are you ok? Did you just use your black pen to col­or in a rec­tan­gle of anguish, defi­ance, or cel­e­bra­tion?” Does it mat­ter how you vot­ed? Can I still love you?

I believe the answer to that ques­tion must be yes. Can I show up for oth­ers? I would rather embrace flesh and blood human­i­ty instead of abstract opin­ions or ideas about realpoli­tik that divorce me from my neigh­bors, but it requires the hard work of show­ing up and listening.

There were many smiles at the cour­t­house and a con­stant flow of tears in the moun­tains. I hope that after the elec­tion we can still embrace those real­i­ties instead of the icon­o­clas­tic hal­lu­ci­na­tions we see on our screens.