Thoughts From a Young Voter Post Election.

Maybe I’m too young to fully understand or appreciate the gravity of this moment in history. My generation has never seen a great depression, never fought in a world war, never not been allowed to vote because of our gender or the color of our skin, never raced another nation to the moon, never mourned the death of a president, never not had cable television or for that matter a video gaming system. So it is difficult for me to grasp the weight of the world in its entirety in this moment. Maybe there is someone wiser than I that has seen and heard the sights and sounds of America re-inventing itself over the span of modern history. Or perhaps, age has little to do with our inability to perceive the scope of history or our place in it. Someone once said that “We can only fully define things that are smaller than we are” and if that is indeed true, then I find it difficult to believe that any one individual has a total and complete understanding of the events that are playing out before us. I do trust however, in a God that is sovereign and loving, a God of peace and of freedom, one that is slow to anger and quick to forgive, a God that sees not our words or actions but the positions of our hearts. Perhaps only He then can grasp the intensity and future ramifications of this moment in the history of our country. For what many of us see as our world, He sees as a small piece of rock in the midst of an expansive cosmos beyond the boundaries of human insight and comprehension. With that in mind, maybe the significance of the moment is not found in understanding it in its entirety but instead embracing the moment in its essentiality. We must take up the idea that we as a nation have entered into a new generation in American history, one that presents a list of new challenges, new sacrifices, new methods and renewed hopes. Hope in a system of governing that was set before us by men much wiser than we, in a time where hope and faith in a God bigger than their current situation was all that they had to cling to. Those brave men and women pieced together a fledgling nation of religious immigrants that established the way of life we hold so dear, a way of life wherein all men were created equal and freedom from tyranny is a God given human right. This is the exceptional and distinctive beauty of the American way of life. That we, the people, decide what is the right course for our nation to set, that we each have a voice and a choice in who governs our nation. It is not a responsibility that we should take lightly, nor should we neglect to be mindful of the many Americans before us that have sacrificed their very lives for these freedoms we so unreservedly enjoy. So before we ignorantly and arrogantly condemn or criticize our system of government that we so readily reap the benefits of, may we look into the very core of our beings and find there a peace and solidarity that we are not alone, there is a bigger picture, a greater meaning in the events that have unfolded before us. May we come to see that only in our continuous effort towards building a better America and the reclaiming of a broken sense of unity amongst its people, will we ever accomplish the goals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that were set before us by those that came before us. Even if we cannot fully comprehend the moment, may we wholly appreciate the complexity and intricacy of the process in which this moment has arrived. We are truly a blessed nation, one that has not always deserved the blessings bestowed upon it, but one that looks to gracefully push forward into a new millennium with the hopes that the earth is not a lost cause but instead a place worth living for and dying for.
No matter your political affiliation, choice of candidate or personal feelings towards the new president elect, may we take pride in the fact that we participated in a remarkable moment in American history. That we honored our civic duty and we counted it a distinct privilege to make our voices heard in our democracy, a system of government which distinguishes us from the rest of the world and the rest of world history. May we now stand alongside one another, one people, united in the ideal that we are still one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.