Slideshow image

By the time you are reading this, the midterm elections may very well have already happened. It is hard to ignore election seasons, with advertisements on our screens, in our ears, and on lawns and roadsides. The presence of this election has been impossible to miss.

There was an article in The New York Times that said this will be the most expensive election season in history, even more expensive than the 2024 Presidential election. Over ten billion dollars is being spent this year on the election.

That is a staggering amount of money, and an even more staggering amount of noise. Every dollar spent is meant to capture something: our attention, our worry, our hope, our anger. For months we have been invited, again and again, to feel urgently about things. Whatever the outcome, many of us arrive at the other side of an election season tired in a way that sleep doesn’t quite fix. Some of us are celebrating. Some are grieving. Many are simply depleted, our nervous systems worn thin from being on alert.

If that is where you find yourself, I want to offer an invitation: stillness.

Stillness is not the same as disengagement or indifference. Caring about our communities and our country is part of living faithfully. But caring and constant agitation are not the same thing, and we cannot sustain the first without making room to rest from the second. Even the most committed among us need a place to set the weight down.

Many wisdom traditions speak to this. The psalmist writes, “Be still, and know.” Contemplatives across the centuries have found that in quiet, something settles in us that no headline or hashtag can reach. Stillness reminds us that we are more than our opinions, our affiliations, or our reactions. We are beloved, breathing, and held by something larger than any ballot count.

Here are a few simple ways to practice in the days ahead:

Take a media fast. Choose a window of time, an evening, a day, or a full weekend, when you turn off the news, mute the notifications, and step away from social media. The results will still be there when you return. Your peace is worth protecting in the meantime.

Sit for five minutes. Find a chair, set a timer, and simply breathe. When your mind races to results, predictions, or arguments, notice the thought without judgment and gently return to your breath. You are not trying to empty your mind, only to give it somewhere to land.

Go outside. Walk without headphones. Notice the bare branches, the color of the sky, the sound of your own footsteps. The natural world carries on with a steadiness that can steady us in return.

Be present with someone. Share a meal or a cup of tea with a friend or neighbor, and agree together to talk about anything other than politics. Remembering what we share beneath our differences is its own kind of healing.

Pray or reflect in silence. Offer whatever is in your heart, whether hope, fear, gratitude, or exhaustion, and then listen. You do not have to fill the quiet with words.

Elections are a season, and seasons pass. The work of building a more just and compassionate world will continue, and we will need one another, rested and grounded, to do it. But first, let us breathe. Let us be still. Let us remember that beneath the noise, there is a deep peace that no amount of money can buy and no result can take away.

May you find that peace in the days ahead.