A Prayer for the Ballot

I always ponder this passage around elections:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8 (NRSV)

This year it led to the following prayer. Perhaps it will help you in your decisions as it helped me.  

God, I am lost.

Lost in feeds and updates

in hopeless rhetoric

in empty dreams of a better world

in the cracks between friends of different opinions

in the beguiled faces of those left out

in the future peace my children take for granted

in the scourge of opioid deaths

in the tears of families grieving without a hope for justice

in the feckless cowardice of political operatives

in Liberty’s wrenched and tired hands

in the maelstrom of absolutisms

in the greed and guile of slanderous ads

in the narcissism, even my own

in the self-righteousness

Oh, God, find me.

Find me in your courage

in your justice

in your compassion

in your humility

in your devotion to goodness

in votes and actions that value your heart

Find me, find them, and make it us

And lead us from our desolate division

To a place well-marked by your mercy