[Image credit: New York Times]

I think part of the reason we all feel so weary at election season is because our eyes are opened to the vast landscape of human frailty– we see people lie, cheat, hate, belittle, seek self over others, and refuse to listen or apologize or change when they might be wrong. It’s safe to say we see these behaviors in candidates and in friends and strangers who uphold their candidate of choice. It’s discouraging and leaves us all shaking our heads about what the world is coming to. Other than prayer that everything turns out OK, here are 3 quotes that have helped me find some peace and clarity through this whole process:

1) Jeffrey R. Holland, on why we can’t let anger about other jerks turn us into jerks too: “In my righteous indignation (at least we always say it is righteous) I have to make sure that I don’t end up doing exactly what I was accusing [others] of doing—getting mad, acting stupid, losing my cool, ranting about it, wanting to get my hands on him—preferably around his throat—until, before I know it, I have checked my religion at the door! No, someone in life, someone in the 21st century, someone in all of these situations has to live his or her religion because otherwise all we get is a whole bunch of idiots acting like moral pygmies.”

2) Neal A Maxwell, all the way back in 1978, warning about a society that lets itself dictate morality instead of accepting God’s standards: “We may, by legislation and regulation, vainly try to create a zone of private morality. But there is, ultimately, no such thing as private morality; there is not an indoor and an outdoor set of Ten Commandments. Neither is it useful to cite human shortfalls as an excuse to abandon all absolutes, because striving and falling short of accepted standards is very different from having no standards at all.
“There is an ecology that pertains to human nature just as there is an interrelatedness pertaining to nature. This spiritual ecology embodies certain laws which, if violated, will produce certain consequences. These laws, though less acknowledged, are as irrevocable and active as the laws of nature. They do not cease to operate simply because we do not recognize them, any more than one is protected from the consequences of eating a poisonous toadstool just because he believes it to be a mushroom.
“We had better want the consequences of what we believe or disbelieve, because the consequences will come!”

I just hope that as a society, we can be careful enough to not pick and eat poisonous mushrooms.

3) Finally, this quote from Barbara Bush reminds me that politics are not everything, and I still have some power to create the kind of world I hope for: “Your success as a family, our success as a society depends not what happens at the White House, but what happens inside your house.”

So let’s be wise this week– in the way we vote, in the way we react to outcomes, no matter how unpleasant, and in the way we conduct ourselves with others who agree or disagree. And speaking for myself, I’m glad that God is still in charge, whether people choose Him or not. May “God speed the right.”

[I stay out of the political fray for the most part because I really don’t like fighting. Please note that this post is not an invitation to defend or attack any candidate; it’s just a reminder of our responsibility to be civil, to be mindful of the consequences of our choices, and to be the best people we can be in our sphere of influence.]