Black and White

I dont' get it. Call me naive. Call me just having gotten off the bus, I don't know. I don't know why we've gotten so mean. Why do we accept MEAN as normal behavior?

We're all sick of this election. But why can't we just vote our conscience and let each other do the same? Why can't we peacefully disagree? I don't understand why it's become a battle between Good and Evil, between God's Chosen and Satan's Chosen. That's not fair. That's not at all Christ-like. Who are we to be so arrogant as to assume that we know who God wants for this corrupted job of president?

I don't understand, either, why everything is either really good or really bad. One candidate is God's Man, the other is a threat to all "godly" values, according to some. One is good, one is evil. We're like that with our leaders. They have to be either perfect, without fault, or they are garbage.

Look at all of us who are voting, even, maybe especially those of us who call ourselves Christian. Do we have spotless lives? I used to think that Church should be a place where we can bring our truest selves, to be most honest, to find acceptance and God's grace. In the real world it doesn't work that way. I don't know why people have to withold their truest selves when they come to church, or why nobody wants to talk about the things that break their hearts. Why can't we talk about our kid who's struggling with drugs? Or that our son or daughter just came out to us as a homosexual and we are afraid for them in this world? Or that our spouse drinks too much? Instead, we come to church and leave our dirty laundry at home, and try not to show our hearts breaking.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that everything in our world tends to be black and white, good or bad. Saints or sinners. This doesn't make sense because time and time again our beloved saints are sometimes caught as sinners, and it turns to scandal. But maybe if we were able to talk honestly about our struggles, people wouldn't be forced to be honest only when they're "found out."

I digress.

I'm tired of either/or. We're all a bunch of mixed-up, multi-colored individuals. We all have our brokenness, our scars. Jesus was the most real and honest person there ever was, and yet we who follow him still keep hiding, as if he no longer tolerates Real People. We are all of us a mixture of good and bad.

As are the people who are insane enough to run for public office. We're all smart people. We all know how it works. We all know that scripts are written to give off certain impressions, rumors are spread, scandals are fired up, lies are rampant, sound bites are the gospel. So why do we buy it all? Why do we get all fired up and believe everything we're told? How can we truly believe that one candidate is the Son of God and the other is the Son of the Devil? They are both as mixed up and faulty and crazy as any one of us. We can only hope that they truly believe some of what they tell us and that they truly desire to reach for those ideals that seem to keep out of our reach as a nation.

Let's pray for McCain and Obama. Let's be sufficiently horrified that anyone would plan to assasinate either one of them. Let's be ashamed that anyone who claims to love God can still hate someone that is different in color or party line. I know who I'm voting for, and I trust you do too. We may not agree, but that doesn't make me or you any more bound for hell. Our nation will go on no matter who is elected. We pray that good things will happen and that needed change will happen. We pray that we can grow as a nation and learn not to act out our fears and resort to primitive violence to solve our problems. I think if the Devil threatens us anywhere, it is in our ease in hating, judging, condemning. It is in causing good people to do bad things in the name of Good. When we hate, when we act out of fear and rage, we are giving power to Evil, not to Good.

The world is not black and white-- let's open our eyes and give thanks for the variety of colors that God has made. Let's stop being afraid and giving power to Evil and calling it Good. I think Jesus would rather shut down the Church altogether than see it become an institutional powerhouse for hate and violence. Let's stop making Jesus weep.