Tuesday, November 3, 2020, is Election Day in the United States. I have looked at candidates and referenda and decided for whom and what directions I support. I put my ballot in the voting drop box in front of City Hall on Monday, October 26, 2020. I've had my say.
When I was ten years old, my dad was a policeman in a small town in middle Georgia. One fall night, he took me to the town square for the election night tally from the precincts around the county.
On that square were seeming hundreds of people all watching a man on a tall ladder writing numbers for candidates in boxes on a 20-foot high blackboard attached to the front of the courthouse. Large spotlights shaped the spectacle. When the man wrote numbers in a box, some people would cheer and others moan. Hour after hour, it seemed, this went on. I fell asleep. That was sixty-five years ago.
Happenings that night on the courthouse square in 1955 suggest a difference being made for people as to what direction life would take for them the next day.
Now, in election 2020, I am watching more closely, have adult and old-age concerns about leadership and directions on issues I support and hope for candidates, based on openness, equality, and reducing suffering in our country. I suspect I'll stay awake longer than usual Tuesday night watching the tally.
I live my life by vow. It means I vote many times every day. I decide directions to take and relations with others.
My speaking out for or against a direction has shifted over time. No longer about the impact on me, so much, but others. I've made a decision and declare fascism incompatible with my values, beliefs, and behavior. No matter who "wins" the election, I will continue my way of life moment by moment. There is not a hair's breadth of difference between vowing and voting,
May compassion and loving-kindness guide us when we awake to the causes and conditions that the morning of November 4, 2020, will bring...
108 Bows,
Sangaku