We are not just republicans or democrats, liberals or conservatives, moderates or extremists who have trouble finding or defining community. We are part of the great communion that embraces the living, the dead, and all who will come after us. Our ancestors – we share them if we go back far enough – have been rogues and heroes, courageous and cowardly, sung and unsung, hardworking and indolent, cruel and kind, mistaken and visionary. Ancestors are not just our blood kin, but the people whose beliefs, ideas, and creations have shaped us. Whether we know their names or not, they live in us as we will live in those who come after us, whether or not we have biological children. … As part of the preparation for voting – and as incentive to vote – we might do well to contemplate this communion, invoke the wisdom of the ancestors to help us keep faith with the descendants.
~ Elizabeth Cunningham
(Tikkun Daily, October 26, 2010)