Sacred Instrument

 "The right to vote is precious and almost sacred, and one of the most important blessings of our democracy. We must be vigilant in protecting that blessing. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy" - Rep. John Lewis (D-GA 5).

My hero died recently. It's not a word I use all that often. Hero, that is, not "recently." I think that in general, we overuse it as a descriptor. There are plenty of public and private figures whose lives, work, and character I admire, all of them flawed (like me!).

John Lewis might be the only person I consider my hero. It's been that way for 40 years, since I first heard of him at age 13 (yes, my name is Beth and I'm a precocious history nerd. Hi!). It wasn't much more than a year or two after that that I first picked up a sign and started protesting something (I believe it was the nuclear-arms race). 

I'm sad that advanced pancreatic cancer claimed him when he was just 80. But we are a better people, a better country, because John Lewis was. Because by age 6, he was preaching to the family chickens in Troy, Alabama, ducking the chores to sneak away and catch the bus to school. Because by age 25, while walking across a bridge as part of a nonviolent movement to ensure that all people in Alabama could exercise their constitutional right to vote, he survived being knocked down, clubbed with nightsticks, and attacked with tear gas - and because he never gave up hope, and never stopped encouraging nonviolent communication and community.

Since turning 18, I've never missed an election, though I was 18 in 1985, which means I still had to wait three years to vote in a presidential election. I once got to my polling place near the end of the 12-hour time to vote in a party primary runoff for County Clerk. I was the fifth vote recorded at that station.

Sometimes when I vote, I don't care a whole lot for either candidate. My response, though, is not to skip the vote. In a more prefect union, there would be a choice I liked better who might have a chance at being elected if I voted for her or him.

I recently read, in the Gospel according to Facebook, that voting is less like marriage and more like public transport. "You're not waiting for the one who is absolutely perfect. You are getting the bus. And if there isn't one getting exactly to your destination, you don't stay home and sulk - you take the one going closest to where you want to be."

The way the United States government is structured, we are a democratic republic. That means, as John Lewis said, the right to vote is "precious and almost sacred."

Sacred. Dedicated or set apart. We are governed by representatives whom we elect to represent us. The vote that each of us has, the vote that each of us gets to cast, has been dedicated to, or set apart for, the operation of our country, state, county, city. 

Holy books tend to be pretty clear about what you and I are to do with things that are sacred: protect them and use them as they are intended to be used.