An editorial by Mr. Marty Nohe.

Aside from a few posts about the debates that were intended to be humorous (even though some people didn’t find them humorous), I have not put much out on social media about the presidential election. That’s because, 18 months ago, the Republican primary voters in my county decided that it was time for me to retire from politics, and since then, I have found that a life that looks in on politics from time to time, rather than one that stands in the middle of it all the time, is a pretty good life. These days, I choose not to put as much emotional energy into elections as I once did. Many people who read this probably are pretty sure that they know who I voted for, and some of those people will certainly be right. But I have never stated how I cast my votes this year on Facebook, nor posted a blue and red map making a prediction of the outcome, and I’m not going to do so now because that is not what this post is about. The one thing I will tell you about how I cast my vote is that, while I do have an opinion about which candidate I would prefer win the election, I am much more concerned about the impact that the outcome will have on the emotional and spiritual health of so many people that I love, which includes you.

I see far too many people, supporters of both Trump and Biden, who are in equal parts convinced that their candidate is going to win and completely terrified that they are wrong and that the other candidate is going to destroy the foundations of our republic. Perhaps more troublingly, they seem to be deeply worried that if their preferred candidate loses, that they will personally suffer horrible and harmful outcomes. I completely understand that instinct. This does feel like an incredibly high stakes election and it is easy to personalize things like this. Anyone who has ever run for office knows how it feels in the days before an election when you personally are affected by the results. My name was on the ballot nine times over the past 20 years, and every time I knew that the outcome of the election was going to have huge personal consequences for me and my family. A lot of the stress, worry, and consternation that I see coming from my friends about the presidential election this year is very reminiscent of how I would feel in the days building up to my own elections. It’s a terrible feeling. You lay awake at night, you get sick to your stomach, you find that your friendships and even family relationships are harmed by even the smallest disagreements. You feel like the campaign will never end, and even when it does that all of the negative feelings associated with it will never go away. Let me tell you that this does not have to be the case, but that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy if it does happen.

Here’s the thing… regardless of what you think is going to happen, or why you think it, you have very little control over the outcome at this point. Once you cast your ballot, the most meaningful impact that you can make is already behind you. Tomorrow evening when the polls close, your ability to knock on a door, make a phone call, give a financial contribution, put up a sign, or post a funny meme is irrelevant. At that point, you and 328 million other Americans just have to sit and wait for the results. It is going to be stressful. There will be states that do not go the way that you hoped and expected them to go. There will be states that do not know their final results on Tuesday night, or Wednesday morning, or even by Friday night. There will be lawsuits. There will be protests. And regardless of which candidate you support, and regardless of which candidate you think is going to win, there is a distinct possibility that you will not ultimately see the outcome that you were hoping for or the one that you were expecting. And the part that makes this really, really hard is that, if the election results do not go your way, you still *must* be able to get up and face the world afterwards. Losing an election, either as a candidate, a candidate’s family member, or a dedicated supporter of that candidate is heart-wrenching. I’ve been there many times and every single time it was the most horrible thing I’ve ever experienced. This year, there are more people that feel emotionally committed to one particular candidate or another than at any point probably in human history. If after it’s done, we have millions of friends and neighbors who want to jump off a bridge because the Electoral College vote didn’t go their way, then our whole country will have lost regardless of who is sitting in the White House.

There’s a popular quotation that I’ve seen many times on social media that says, “If your candidate loses, do not despair. If your candidate wins, do not gloat. This has been hard on all of us, so we must all be kind to one another.” I would add to that, “and we must be kind to ourselves.”

Regardless of the outcome, when all of the results are finally certified, there will be a lot of people in this country who are upset, confused, angry, frustrated, disappointed, sad, depressed, heartbroken… the list goes on. I know that when I lost my last election, I was all of those things in the weeks and months that followed. I got through that difficult time in part because my family and close friends who were similarly devastated did their best to show me support. But I probably received an even bigger lift from people who were less emotionally affected by the outcome of the election, but who were more concerned about how it was affecting me and my family.

My advice and encouragement to everyone would be this: regardless of the who gets sworn in this January, and regardless of whether your preferred candidate wins or not, try to be one of the people who does not allow the outcome of an election to change who you are as a person. In the long run, you will find much more happiness by being connected to God, your family, your friends, and your community than you will ever receive by feeling connected to the President of the United States. If the outcome of the election doesn’t go your way, and that simply proves to be more painful and difficult than you can handle, please, please, please find the friend, spiritual guidance, place, or activity that you define as your “happy place“. Don’t let what you feel is a bad electoral outcome take you to a state of mind that is equally bad for your emotional and spiritual well-being. And if you are one of the people who is overjoyed by the outcome of the election, then go through your friends list, find someone you love who you think might not be doing very well, and serve as a sincere and genuine living example of why God, family and friendship is more important than any election. Four years from now, things will change again. Make sure that the people you love still love you far beyond that.

Tonight, pray that your candidate wins the election. But then pray that when this is over, our families and our communities are able to be stronger and more supportive of one and other than we have been in a long time.

Not a sermon, just a thought.