Closing Ceremonies: Marking the End of Election Season
Election Season Soul Care’s finale invites you to embrace closing ceremonies as a way to reflect, connect, and move forward.
Welp, friends, President Trump was inaugurated yesterday, and this is the final Election Season Soul Care post. I can hardly believe that this project that started as a flash-bang idea while watching the summer Olympics actually took off, lived in the world these past six months, and is now coming to an end. I’m grateful to you all for your readership and support every week!
As I reflect on this project and where the content took me, I am reminded of the significance of closing ceremonies in our lives. There’s the big ones: the graduations, the retirement parties, the funerals. But there’s also small ones: leaving the house key on the countertop when we move out and leave our old home for the last time, packing up the last of the toddler toys when our children have stopped playing with them, the last trip to the pool for the summer.
The inauguration is mostly an opening ceremony, so we don’t see much fanfare about closing the presidential term for the outgoing president. Similarly, once I finish a project, I tend to quickly start the next one without recognizing the accomplishment of what I finished. But what if this week, we have a little closing ceremony for the election season?
What could we do?
Kendra Adachi, aka the Lazy Genius, says in episode #159, “Closing Ceremony Magic,” of The Lazy Genius Podcast, “The magic isn’t in what you do but that you do something.”
Maybe something more reflective works for you. You might…
Name the good you’ve seen this election season
Identify a mindset that served you well
Light a candle and say a prayer
Talk with a spiritual friend about the election season
Or maybe taking action sounds more interesting. Consider…
Ceremonially burning all your journal pages from the election season
Watching a politically-themed movie that inspires you or makes you laugh
Making a donation toward the next election season
Moving your old election signs from the garage and into the recycling bin
Perhaps being with people and closing the election season together fits the bill. You could…
Host a politically-themed potluck with only red, white, and blue food and drink
Gather friends who’ve supported one another this election season and debrief together
Host an hour of prayer for our country
Volunteer at a local non-profit together
These little lists are by no means exhaustive, so use your imagination to bring this election season to a close for yourself. As for me, next week I’ll publish an Election Season Soul Care post script about what’s next for this Substack publication.
A Closing Ceremony for Election Season
Before moving on with your day, spend a few quiet moments deciding how you’d like to close out this election season. If you need to make arrangements with others to create a closing ceremony experience, reach out to those people before you move on with your day.