A reflection by Mary Lou Edgar for June 23, 2024.
It is election season … I say season because it seems to me that it lasts way too long. Sometimes it feels like the world’s longest winter.
I think a lot about the upcoming election (as do I all elections) because even though I feel like I know so much, I really know so little.
I read a great deal and I watch news casts as much as I can to learn more. I have always watched debates from both parties and both conventions. I feel as though this will help me learn that which I know I don’t know. After a person who held office and who I thought did a masterful job dies, I learn things that might have made a difference if I had known them before.
Being able to vote freely and choose our elected officials is certainly a privilege – a great privilege not enjoyed many places in our world.
Often, we don’t value this privilege as much as we should. When Dan and I were younger, we lived in Charlottesville, Virginia. There is so much history in that segment of Virginia and I didn’t appreciate it at all. I would look at it in the same way I looked at football before I understood it. It didn’t matter who was the best player, I needed to know who was the best looking. In politics (any kind, from the town council to the nation’s president) I rarely did my homework.
One day I realized that my determinations were incredibly superficial. Instead of investigating who had the necessary background, who had worked in a specific field, whose speeches really touched me, I was focused on all the unimportant aspects. I would like to say it was because I was raised in a rural background, but it wasn’t. My parents were very thoughtful about these decisions and tried to convey this to me and my siblings.
I came to realize that I was very judgmental – not just in voting but in so many things. I have seen myself jump to a conclusion about a person or experience without even thinking.
When I was young, I (like most girls) had a best friend. Her family was very well off, but they did not get along very well, and they seemed unhappy. But they had beautiful clothes. One year when school was starting, we had to bring a box of crayons to school to use during the year.
I had a box of 24 crayons and thought I was so fortunate. Until I got to school to find my friend had 64 crayons and a sharpener. I had never seen such a thing and I was overwhelmed by how wonderful it was.
Suddenly, my 24 crayons were nothing. I was sad and shared this with my mother when I got home. She candidly looked at me and asked me if I wanted this person’s life? I said no because she wasn’t very happy. My mother said that if I wanted her crayons, I needed to look at her whole life and see if I wanted it or just the crayons. I realized I did not know as much as I needed to. I was also very envious of those crayons.
I felt somewhat ashamed. My parents had five children and worked hard to provide for us. I thought about what I could do. I ended up talking less and listening more. I realized that everything is not what it seems, and I needed to look at things from many different angles. I started to think differently about what was important.
Now I listen and I learn. So, when faced with any decision, I investigate, and I try to make educated decisions rather than quick ones. I look at what I believe is important, not just what I am told and what I have heard in the media. It can be hard. I hope during the coming year, we will all do that – exercise our freedom. There are so many countries where that cannot be done. We need to pray for guidance and then make decisions in a thoughtful, compassionate, educated way.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mary Lou Edgar, MSS, is a clinical social worker who founded A Better Chance for Our Children, an adoption and foster care agency that works to find permanent homes for children in the foster care system. Mary Lou was the Executive Director of ABCFOC, but she is now retired. She graduated from Neumann University and Bryn Mawr School of Social Work and Social Research. She and her husband joined SsAM in 2021.
