I can’t remember the last time my brother and I broke bread together on Thanksgiving. In a few weeks, my only sibling will carve the bird and cut the pie in a home we’ve never visited, as families who barely know one another as adults. We will have finished local and national elections, our votes and those of our spouses canceling one another out. Therefore, not all of us will feel equally jubilant that day.
Though we will not have voted the same, we love one another deeply. Life circumstances and geographical distance may have separated us, yet we are the only family now alive who remember our childhood.
We’ve decided to take a road trip cross country the day after, sharing the drive and stories the other may not know or remember. No doubt questions will arise, the chance to fill in the gaps of memory, rearrange the narrative, corroborate how they ended. I suspect laughter will abound, and as we buried our parents a few years back, a measure of tears.
It's hard for us to imagine one another’s lives, he raises chickens and putzes around the river front cottage he shares with his wife of nearly thirty years. He remembers me as a long-distance runner, now a long distant memory. I remember him as the kid who always got caught holding the bag. He remembers me as the one to turn to if you need a little psychology to figure something out. I remember him as the one who always made people laugh over nothing of consequence.
However this presidential election turns out, win, lose or draw, what matters most is the love that draws us outwards towards one another and upward into the future. By God’s grace, we will find sustenance in the memories we share of who we were, and the stories we create of who we can yet be.
Please join us on election day here in Vero Beach, or find a place of worship wherever you may be to pray. We’ll gather at Community Church in Grace Chapel for a brief worship and communion at 10, 12, 2, 4, and 6.
God be with us,
Rev. Dr. Anna V. Copeland, Senior Minister
The Community Church of Vero Beach
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