Spiritual Lessons to Draw from the Iowa Caucus

The Iowa Caucus and the collective (inter)national freakout it has fostered provides, like many of life’s challenges, a great opportunity to do our spiritual work around it.  Specifically, we can remember 

What NOT to do in the middle of political or personal chaos:

1.     Don’t make sh*t up.   It is well established that in the absence of information, humans (including news media and people with big social media feeds) make s**t up.  It is scary to us to not know.   Just because it’s scary doesn’t mean that it helps things to make things up.  It is okay not to know.  It is okay to wait a few days for information.  News media finds it hard.  This doesn’t mean I have to find it hard.  Sometimes we just don’t know.

2.  Don’t spread rumors or conspiracy theories or gossip.  The only thing worse than making sh*t up is to then spread that sh*t around.  Please do yourself and all of us a favor and don’t.  Especially on social media.  That means that if you don’t know for a fact that an app was hacked by the Russians, don’t say it is.  If you don’t know for a fact that an app was owned by a candidate in the race, don’t say that it is (by the way NBC has confirmed a relationship now between the Iowa app and a top Buttigieg advisor).  If you don’t know for a fact that someone won an election, don’t say they did.

3.    Feelings aren’t facts.  This is related to #1 but not exactly the same.  Even if I know what’s happening sometimes I can tell myself a bigger story than is warranted by the facts.  This story then drives the facts.  I hear people deciding they’re not going to campaign or even vote for their favorite candidate in their own state because “the whole process is rigged.” Woah.  That is a story.  If we follow steps 1, 2 and 3 here, maybe we can find out the actual facts first.  Maybe our candidate was the big winner.  Maybe a whole lot of volunteers over 70 isn’t an ideal test case for an app. 

4.    Keep calm and brew tea.  The British have a very good solution to every problem which is keep calm and brew tea.  While you wait for some actual facts, turn off the cable news, try to keep calm and put whatever your metaphorical kettle is on the burner.  Maybe it’s listening to music.  Maybe it’s going for a walk.  Maybe it’s just turning our attention to our own “uncounted ballots”—unpaid bills, other things in our work or household that need attention.

5.    This too shall pass.  Whatever is happening here isn’t going to be like this forever.  Whether this is tabulating the Iowa caucus results, dealing with a hospitalized loved one, or a crisis at work, it is temporary.  At some point it will be over.  Take a breath and realize things will change.

Maybe next installment will be what to affirmatively do in the middle of chaos.

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