Hope, Fear and Something Else

This is long and maybe it rambles a bit, so read what you can and let me know your thoughts.

After an amazing birthday celebration with my niece Jordan and my wonderful family,
I vowed that I would stay away from any more political postings. So with five days left in this election cycle, this is it, je suis fini.

As a person of faith, my sincerest belief is that hope overcomes fear.
When I compare the two campaigns, I see a definite difference, there is no place for fear.

According to 1 John 4:18–21, the God I worship encourages us to live without fear.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love.

I struggle daily with this idea of loving my neighbor, but my faith teaches me that:

We love, because he first loved us.

If I claim faith then I am challenged because:

If any one says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

And further:

… this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.

And this is why I believe that Senator Obama exemplifies leadership for the future of America and is the best choice to be our next President. I believe that in general and overall, he has run a campaign based on the issues and not in tearing down his opponent.

And yet, while I was discussing this with Stephen, I found the cynicism creeping in. I kept thinking that we as a country deserve the leaders we get. Just look at the last 8 years.

So while I believe that hope can and should triumph over fear, I keep thinking that if Senator Obama wins this election and we as a country cannot truly get behind his vision for us as a nation, then the blame and ridicule and anger and distrust and the thinking that 2012 will somehow be better, will enter, full force, into the American psyche.

You know, the fact that there is still a percentage in this country who think Senator Obama is Muslim, Arab and a terrorist. The fact that white skinheads plan on killing him. The fact that he is referred to as a "risky" candidate and that he has anti-America sentiments. And of course there's the reality that some won't vote for him just because he is black. This stuff is nuts. Sometimes I just wish he would just go home and love his wife and his girls and stay safe and away from all of this nonsense that we call American politics.

So with that I confess I won’t be too disappointed if Senator McCain wins the election. If he does, we can continue on as we have. As I noted, we deserve the leaders we get. Then the blame for our failure as a nation and our failure as a positive presence on the world’s stage can fall where it has always fallen.

Senator Obama, thank you for the good fight and the idea that you could bring us together as a nation and as a people. Thank you for the reminder that the rights of every one of us; left, right, center, gay, straight, red, blue, rich or poor. That each of us with all of our flaws and with all of our hopes and dreams, could be respected. All of this is kind of like the way I believe that God looks at us each of us, at the end of each and every day, with love and mercy.

Matt.12: 1-8
At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath."
He said to them, "Have you not read what David did, when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law how on the sabbath the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, `I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath."

So while I was thinking of the things I wanted to write and feeling a bit anxious. I found some peace in listening to Aaron Neville's beautiful version of Amazing Grace

No matter how this election turns out it also helps me to remember, as our Canon Pastor, Mary Haddad reminds us "where ever you are, God is, and all will be well."

Happy Birthday - October 15, 2008

I celebrated my birthday this year in Seattle. This was a special occasion for me and my niece Jordan. Most of you know that we share the birthday, October 15th. She was born in 1987 and I was born in 1948, so do the math and you will see that it was a special day for both of us and we got to celebrate it together.

There to help us celebrate were Stephen (behind the camera), my dear son Justin and Jordan’s parents, my beautiful sister Kay and brother-in-law Chris. I got birthday greeting phone calls from Angela and Andrea, so my day was complete.



What a special time. We had nothing but fun, good conversation, great food and a totally relaxing week.



I think the following poem is a perfect one for our birthday, enjoy.

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.


~ Mary Oliver ~

Hanging On

I posted this in response to a question over at raincitypastor. You can read the original here

The reason I am posting it here is because in these remaining days until the election we are told to expect even more negative campaigning and even less focusing on the issues. There is the rhetoric at some of the campaign rallies that seem to rile up the crowds by stoking anger and division. (See video from previous post). Can it get any worse?

I agree that the two party system and the choices offered by that system are less than satisfactory. But this is what we have. And this time I am not going to make a protest vote although I admit as in elections past, I am tempted.

The campaigning is dirty and getting dirtier. The rallies are ugly, are the smears are rampant. The candidates lie and manipulate and their handlers are even worse. The candidates purport to be people of faith, yet they seem to ignore the Ninth Commandment. Is there an exemption on “not bearing false witness” during an election?

So, this time I am voting for the candidate who seems to me to be running the cleaner campaign of the two. And although it is very hard to hear amid all the commotion, if you listen very closely you can hear an ever so slightly quieter rhetoric coming from one side of the campaign trail and that candidate gets my support.

As a citizen, it is hard to stay focused and easy to become fearful and disenchanted. As a person of faith I try and trust that in what ever the circumstances God is there and all will be well.

McCain-Palin Rally

I saw this video in an article I read this morning.

Disclaimer: I know there are two sides to every story. I understand that so this post is coming from as unbiased a position as I can find within me. And I know out there lurks an equally offensive/ignorant bunch of people captured on video and produced by the "other side."

Having said that, is it just me or do you see a problem here? I assume that the individuals presented in this video are actual Americans sharing with us their informed opinions.




Seriously, whether you are red or you are blue, where does this mentality come from?

Dear Lord, show us the purple.


h/t bloggerinterrupted
found here

Thoughts on the Second Debate

So here are some of my thoughts on last night’s debate.
Boring, nothing new and neither candidate followed the rules. I wonder why they have debates anyway?

Oh well. Two things stood out for me though.

The first thing was the question from the 78-year-old Fiorra from Chicago.

Brokaw: All right, gentlemen, I want to just remind you one more time about time. We're going to have a larger deficit than the federal government does if we don't get this under control here before too long.

Sen. McCain, for you, we have our first question from the Internet tonight. A child of the Depression, 78-year-old Fiorra from Chicago.

Since World War II, we have never been asked to sacrifice anything to help our country, except the blood of our heroic men and women. As president, what sacrifices -- sacrifices will you ask every American to make to help restore the American dream and to get out of the economic morass that we're now in?

This got me to thinking about the sacrifices I heard about from my parents, two of which were the rationing of food. The photo shows a weeks worth of rationed food, common during WW II. And no nylon stockings for the women. You know to get the look of seams they actually used eyebrow pencil to draw lines up the back of their legs. But that’s another topic.



So when I heard that question my mind immediately went to “personal sacrifice.” You know an individual doing without something that we have come to take for granted and actually expect. You know, we can eat what we want, drive as much as we want, wear what we want and the like. For the greater good, would we be able to even consider doing without anything? What would happen if the President asked us as a nation to sacrifice?

I thought of the two responses, Sen. Obama came the closest to asking the public to sacrifice, when he took the question in the direction of energy. It was specific and of course timely. He said:

...each and every one of us can start thinking about how can we save energy in our homes, in our buildings....

The second point that stood out was this question:

Brokaw: Quick discussion. Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?
Sen. McCain?
McCain: I think it's a responsibility….
Obama: Well, I think it should be a right for every American.

There is nothing I can add to that one except I am glad to hear it acknowledged as a right, certainly not a privilege.




You can read the entire transcript here