I wasn’t Jesus today, but I may have put a couple stitches into the hem of the sleeve of St. Francis.

When I was a little child I had a vision. My family had returned to the States from Israel where I’d been born. We were seemingly a regular Jewish American family. Yet that afternoon, as I walked alone on the sidewalk by our tract house in the San Fernando Valley I asked myself, “how should I live this life?”

The answer came, try to live as much like Jesus as you can. It seemed a normal interior dialog to me. Only when I was much older did I realize it might have been a bit unusual. I mean, comparatively speaking. I’ve remembered and forgotten throughout my life that sage advice from who knows who, about how to live.

Today I went to the bank to consult with their loan counselor about consolidating my rapidly overwhelming debt. Due to family circumstances and my own lack of savvy with money I began to feel that I was getting into dangerous territory vis-à-vis credit cards.

I had a pleasant exchange with the loan counselor who was sympathetic personally but only had a slim piece of temporary help. I told her I’d have to sleep on it. That was always my father’s solution when confronted with something that was baffling and needed a right decision.  

I left the bank and decided to walk next door to see a friend who works in the doctor's office of Family Practice. We chatted about our problems in her quiet cubicle—I would not want to exchange mine for hers—and then a patient came to her desk with a red plastic card that indicated something she needed to do on the computer for him. So I said goodbye and gave her a hug.

When I turned around, the gentleman, a stranger to me, humorously had his arms out waiting for his hug. We all three chuckled. For a brief instant I felt the instinct to give him a hug. And then the thought rushed in, he’s at the doctor, maybe he has something contagious, I don’t want his problems either. That all came in the flash of a smile, and I departed.

Later, as I drove home I realized that refraining from extending a universal loving hug to that man was not what Jesus would have done. He would have hugged the man even if he had been a leper with open puss dripping wounds. I didn’t reprimand myself. Only witnessed where I’m falling short of my original mandate.

But before I realized I had not lived up to being like Jesus today I had another moment of Witness. I’d been steeped in the thought of less- than-enough all morning—debt and how to pay it off when all my current income will cover is food, rent, and just barely Yoga class. Perhaps you, dear reader, have also experienced times like this. But for a moment—like clouds clearing and letting the sun shine through—walking into the hardware store to buy a new flapper for my toilet (OK there is a tiny bit of expendable income), I felt I have plenty. I’d scanned my mind to see if I needed to stop at the market and realized I had enough food at home and all I needed money for was to fix the toilet. Truly, like you beloved St. Francis, I have all I need. The shiny new patio chairs were not something I needed to wrap my consciousness around, nor did I have a desire for new clothes, or shoes, or any other sort of material goodies which only really serve to distract my attention from focusing on that which is sacred and holy to my soul’s purpose here on Earth in this life—to try to live as much like Jesus as I can.

Those punch cards never seemed to pose a problem in the past, before radically moneyed lobbyists, super delegates, and the judiciary started messing with the process.

I’ve never been very politicized, nor do I consider myself very well educated in American history. But I do know that people lost their lives and fought for my right to live in a free democracy and the least I can do in remembrance of their sacrifices is to vote.

When voting was sacred, your polling place was well publicized and on election day liquor stores were closed, workers got extra time for lunch break, or let out early. Polling places would stay open late to give everyone a chance to have their say in the democratic process. And when you completed voting they’d give you a sticker on your way out – I Voted – in red, white, and blue. You’d walk around town seeing many people proudly wearing their sticker on lapel, or hat, or sleeve.

Today I went to vote. I noticed that on the list of voters only three or four names per page had been highlighted as having voted. That was after it took me several hours to figure out where to go. My registration card said such and such building. I recalled that several years ago I’d voted at that location and it had taken me quite some time to figure out where it was. Today I went straight to it only to find no flag flying and no activity. I had already gone online, been directed to a Facebook page on which this same building was indicated as my polling place but also had no address. Under comments someone asked, “What is the address of this building?” There was no answer to his comment. I finally found a phone number online and called. I’d expected to have to wait, for certainly a lot of people would be calling, this being election day. But my call was taken immediately, not even a menu to have to get through. The very nice woman said, Oh that’s been changed, it’s now at the Armory – where voting used to take place.

As I drove away from inking in my ballot, on which only one vote mattered to me, the one that will cancel out my friend’s vote, I felt a kind of emptiness. We laughed that our votes would cancel each other out; that was not the cause of my emptiness. The hollowness that struck me was more about the “rite” of voting having become as empty as most church services in which candles are lit, and communion is taken but no true communion with something greater has taken place.

Leaving, walking back to my car I ran into a friend. She had just come from the liquor store where she’d mentioned remembering when liquor stores were closed on election day. The older man at the cash register said, that was to make sure that no one got you drunk and convinced you to vote as they wanted you to. The younger man stocking the candy bars said, why bother voting anyway; it’s all just decided by the super candidates. He seemed to feel that no communion between the voter and the outcome was really possible.

But what if every young person did vote? What if it is still possible to restore the tattered threads of the democracy that our forebears so fiercely believed in, a freedom for which they were willing to die? Are our souls so completely lost to the Wormtongues* of our age? I don’t know the answer. But as is said in the current vernacular, “Just saying…”

* Grima Wormtongue, "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”