Dear Friends,

As Election Day approaches, the bishops of both dioceses in Massachusetts have invited all Episcopalians to participate in a 48 hour prayer vigil, beginning on Sunday November 6 at noon and concluding on Election Day, Tuesday November 8, at noon.You can read their full statement here. Some parishes are already planning services or vigil periods in their churches during that time, and information will be forthcoming about how our parish will be participating.

Time and again as we approach  presidential elections, we are  told that the particular election before us is the most decisive election in a generation. The prospect of momentous change can fill us with anticipation, and also with fear. I know this is not the first election in which some people feel anxious and uncertain about the outcome, and it will not be the last. Our bishops are calling for us as communities of faith to ensure that all we do, and the choices we make, are rooted in prayer.

I am a great admirer of  Marilynne Robinson, a writer whose fiction and nonfiction works are imbued with her deep Christian faith. Last year In an article entitled “Fear” in The New York Review of Books, she commented on the palpable anxieties present in our national life:

“First, contemporary America is full of fear. And second, fear is not a Christian habit of mind. As children we learn to say, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” We learn that, after his resurrection, Jesus told his disciples, “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” Christ is a gracious, abiding presence in all reality, and in him history will finally be resolved.”

“Fear is not a Christian habit of mind.” Those words have come to me again and again  when I find myself growing anxious or fearful.  Fear is not a Christian habit of mind, because, as Robinson writes, “Christ is a gracious, abiding presence in all reality.”

I encourage us to keep those words in our minds and hearts as we move through these next few weeks, as well as in the days after the election. Whatever the outcome, some of us will be disappointed and some of us will be excited. We will seek ways to work for the common good, and we will do so as a community of faith, knowing that Christ is present in all reality – in both our fear, and in our faith.

Faithfully,

Tom

Note: The article “Fear,” by Marilynne Robinson, is from the September 24, 2015 issue of The New York Review of Books, and can be found here.