Religion & Politics

Two pieces:

• A devoutly religious student at the local university woke up this morning, excited to vote for the first time, but undecided regarding the presidential race, prayed, "God, give me a sign from above," then walked outside and saw it, a small plane circling the area pulling a sign that read, "Vote Obama Today." (I saw the plane pass by several times a few minutes ago. The rest of the story, however, is fictional.)
• A prayer for election day--May good people give thanks for the right to vote and vote their conscience. May those entrusted to oversee the voting do their duty justly and fairly. May the various means by which votes are recorded work better than this highly fallible system would dictate. May the results come quickly and be accepted as legitimate. May we as a nation unite, both supporting and opposing the winner as needed to check power and ensure equity. May those elected to offices both high and low execute their duties well. And may we forgive each other and ourselves for the rancor and discord of another long electoral season, finding wisdom and goodness in each of us, rejecting that which is base, mean-spirited, duplicitous, or erroneous, and striving to acknowledge, address, and right those things that ail us.