“We will all live with the results of these elections, but we will all live together as fellow Americans, as citizens.”
Hello. We’re filming this on Election Day before the results of the Presidential and other elections are in. But there’s some thoughts I wanted to share with you, and a prayer I’d like to offer.
Twenty-five years ago Robert Fulghum published a book, All I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, and in that book he talked about the kinds of things we learned as children, especially in kindergarten:
Share everything.
Clean up your own mess.
Don’t hit people.
Play fair.
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
We learned those as children, and those were lessons for life.
I remember as a child, and I suspect you learned as well, the words of the Pledge of Allegiance. Listen to those words again:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
That Pledge of Allegiance and those words were taught to us as children, but they’re meant for us as adults and as a country.
We will elect a President. We will elect officer holders. Some will be Republicans. Some will be Democrats. Some will be Independents. But that will be the democratic process. That’s how we govern ourselves in our country, and we will all live with the results of those elections, but we will all live together as fellow Americans, as citizens. And so the time will come, to bind up our wounds, to overcome our differences, to reconcile with each other, to reach out to those who differ with us, and to be Americans.
One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
And an America like that will truly be a shining city upon a hill.
And so a prayer that I also learned as a little child, the words of James Weldon Johnson:
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on our way;
Thou who has by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
And true to our native land.
God bless you, God keep you, and reach out in love to your fellow citizens.
