To Vote or Not to Vote, That is the Question

For the person taking an inner journey do politics and spirituality go together? Is it politics and spirituality or politics or spirituality?

For the past year I’ve been following American politics, as well as world politics focusing on issues concerning women. So Marianna Williamson’s recent article Sister Giant: Consciousness and Politics at HuffPo, which partially takes on the questions I posed, caught my attention.

The article is a feeder for the November event “Women, Non-Violence and Birthing a New American Politics,” which aims to encourage more women to enter politics. The logic is that we’ll heal what ails us if we increase women’s participation in politics. We need more heart in governing society.

I support the concept; I think I’ll sign up for the live streaming of the event. After all, one of my primary callings is to explain the spiritual reasons why women have the potential to make significant world change and show them how to practically do it, starting with themselves and their home.

That stated a word of caution about simplistic thinking is in order. Women can’t provide magical cures just because they are women. Though this is self-evident and common sense, weak or confused thinking could lead us to believe that simply placing women in the Senate, Congress, Supreme Court, or the presidency will put a dent in our social ills. Women instead of men won’t necessarily “birth a new American Politics.”

I agree with Marianna that the value of the feminine’s receptive, inclusive nature cannot be understated. But not just any feminine or any female will do. It is the feminine divine: the female or male who has embodied deep spirituality.

The solutions we desperately seek are arrived at by putting spiritually awake women or men into those positions.
As I read Marianna’s article I flashed to the 2012 Election and the quandary nagging me all year: Should I vote?

I don’t trust Obama or Romney. Therefore, how can I cast a vote for either?
The logic that I should vote for the lesser of two “evils” doesn’t work for me. Voting is more than marking a ballot next to someone’s name. It is participation—in a real way, partial ownership—of choices that person makes.

Although the premises behind Marianna’s proposal seem to draw from unclear thinking and thus are suspect, her article got me to take action: I registered to vote.

Now what will I do with that privilege? I’m undecided.

I say give me a real candidate: a woman or man who has understood why the feminine divine holds so much power and how to embrace and wield that force. If the Sister Giant project could deliver that candidate I’d run to the polling station.

What about you?