A vote is like a box of chocolates — delicious no matter the choice or flavor.
Now, I am not recommending we munch down a vote as if it were a Snickers bar, but maybe close. Think of your vote with a yearning, like a cocoa yearning. That is when there is nothing else in the world at that moment to satisfy your craving but a Snickers bar. You can’t live without it.
So a vote should be something you can’t live without.
We are not identical beings. Maybe you’re into Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or Kit Kats. I suppose what I am really saying is that we have different passions, causes, loves and, yes, political parties. November 5 is the day to voice our beliefs and support the reason we love America.
It is hard for me to imagine an American citizen that would bypass that sacred honor. So many countries in the world discount the will of their citizens. But in the United States — and allow me to stop here and proclaim God Bless America! — “We the People” have rights, and one of the most important is the right to vote.
I first voted at age 18, like so many of you, but at that time, when I marked the ballot, I wasn’t tuned into the great significance of my action. I mean my daddy just said, “Don’t forget to vote today.” So I trotted by my polling station, and someone directed me to the ballots, and that was that. No big deal.
But it was a big deal, and year by year I have come to realize, not including my salvation, voting is the biggest deal of my life. Oh, I can plop a political sign in my yard, plaster bumper stickers on my car, hand out pamphlets at the corner market, but the act of voting, that is what it is all about. May I never forget or take it for granted.
But so many say, “They’re all crazy. I can’t vote for any of them.”
Yes, you can! I have often said that no one can get to the level of the presidency without a few skeletons in their closet or squirrels in their heads, but we, as voters, can’t worry about that. We march forward and perform our sacred duty anyway.
And perhaps we cast our vote for a jerk, and there have been years the ballot choices are overcrowded with jerks. However, as innocent citizens we vote our convictions, and the jerks are on their own. Eventually, we will figure it out.
We vote our hearts and what is important to us. Our soul seeks the truth, what is right for today and for the future.
And we must not be influenced by political dramatizations such as “House of Cards” on Netflix. I admit I watched the entire first four seasons without taking a break, and I almost screamed, “Surely not,” with bleary eyes and a great need for a Snickers bar.
Yet, I managed to vote in 2020.
Like so many of you, my readers, I have watched from afar. I have observed all of the craziness tearing through the political arena and thanked God I wasn’t even a tiny part of the seemingly insane process.
But someone has to carry forward Washington, D.C., and they are our elected officials. That’s when we have a say with our vote and the election of our leaders.
It is hard, really hard, to decipher what is best for America. But I promise you, and I have relied on this strategy for many years, when we walk into the voting booth, there will be, I like to think, a supernatural messenger whispering into our ear with the answer.
We must mark our ballot even if the choice doesn’t make sense. We must rely on God to make it right, and He will.
God Bless America, land that I love.
Anne McKee is executive director of the Meridian Railroad Museum and can be found online at annemckeestoryteller.com