Keith: An alternative to election-night stress
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Given the growing anxiety over the looming presidential election, as a local pastor and longtime member of a community I deeply love, I offer an alternative to the cacophonous cable and social media news ecosystem I find so toxic to heart and mind.
We are reminded to be critical and cautious customers of information, preferably deriving news from multiple well-attested sources. We are told that “breaking news” that inflames or enrages or depresses us is a hallmark of disinformation, or in brief, when we, as information consumers, get angry, someone is making money from us.
I find that breaking news often breaks my spirit rather than simply conveying new information I’ve not yet heard. Being a person of faith means I am both an optimist and a believer in order over chaos. It also means discerning which voices to attend to and which voices to tune out, especially this week.
To that end, my colleagues and I are offering a virtual live-streamed vigil on election night beginning at 7 p.m. and concluding at 11 p.m. Please find us on our EpiscopalVail YouTube channel to remotely join our vigil. There won’t be in-person attendance.
A vigil is not a continuous presentation of prayer and reflection, but rather an alternative atmosphere, quieter and more centered than the evening’s spasmodic televised, podcasted and tweeted updates. We’ll offer short reflections on the hour and half-hour beginning at 7 p.m., as vigils are meant to be visited periodically. In between, we’ll play reflective music focused on the Vail Chapel altar.
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Although many reflections come from our own Christian tradition, our grounding in the interfaith chapel and partnership with our community means all are welcome to join us virtually. While we do not yet know when we’ll know the outcome of this election, I do know some of us need another way to be together as our nation strives to inhabit a more perfected union.
I do know the bonds that unite us as Americans and as citizens of a constitutional and federal republic have been tested by previous generations, including by members of my own family, and under great sacrifice have held. I do know we in Eagle County are well served by our professional and volunteer team of election judges in the Eagle County Clerk and Recorder’s Office. And I believe our community can rise above the dark voices seeking to convince us that exercising the greatest privilege in the long history of human governance is somehow less than the profound honor we as citizens of a free country can enact, that of self-governance of, by and for the people of this land.
Please vote, please vote your conscience and please join us virtually for an alternative. May God bless us all.
