We can carry each other with care.

Tuesday night after the polls closed, I joined a group of interfaith clergy at 980 East Hennepin, Minneapolis’ Election and Voter Services site. Standing in the dark under our canopy in the rain, 200 feet away from the entrance, we watched the ballots arrive. Regular citizens in their regular cars pulled in under the bright security lights and walked them in. They came in rolling black bags and white and silver bags with snapping closures that looked like oversized briefcases, and the election workers carried them with care and purpose. I swear I could see the intention in each person that arrived, precious cargo successfully gathered and delivered. One pair of election workers paused on their way out just long enough to exchange a high-five in the parking lot. It had been a long and exhausting day, and they shared a job well done. 

Watching them, the poem Shoulders, by Naomi Shihab Nye (shared in full below), came to my mind and refuses now to leave. In it, the poet describes a man carefully carrying his sleeping son on his shoulder, crossing the street in the rain. The breath of the boy’s dreams hums in the man’s ear. The man carries the boy with fierce tenderness and care.

We’re not going to be able
to live in this world, she writes, if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another. The road will only be wide. The rain will never stop falling.

The election workers and volunteers, the poll chaplains, the election defenders and the election protectors still standing watch, the drivers and voters and crossing guards, the coffee makers and the tent lenders and the postcard writers and the phone callers—each of them, each of us, carried the hum of a dream and turned it into a ballot. A prayer, a hope, a dream carefully noted and counted. A promise that says this country, this community, this world is not finished yet and we will have a part in creating a future—a future where we carry our own and each others’ hopes and prayers and dreams with the care of a person guarding the world’s most precious cargo. 

We can carry each other with care. I see you do it everyday, and here at church we remember this sacred task, and we say again: This is who we are, this is what we do, this is the work of the church. 

In faith,

Rev. Jen

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Shoulders
Naomi Shihab Nye

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.

We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.