Koinos Community Church - The Latest v02.06

The Latest v02.06

Collegiate gyms fill-up with screaming, chanting, and stomping fans. Young blondes lead cheers. Sweaty bodies compete to earn more cheers. It's nothing unusual. What is unusual is when the cheers are deafening, and nobody is playing ball. It's a little wacked when a slightly stooped Grandmother screams like the curtain was just pulled back at a Rat Pack concert. It's pretty funky to sit covering your ears while somebody's Maw-Maw seems bent on hurting herself with all of those pumping fists and hoarse vocal chords.

My first exposure to a political rally. Quite possibly my last.

As a die-hard Independent, I simply wanted to get a taste of what these events are like. Wintergreen Listerine still can't quite get the taste out of mouth.

I am sure I speak for most of us when I say I am glad the campaign tour buses, and the charted jets and helicopters of the Presidential hopeful have left the Commonwealth. At least until the fall. Like recovering from a bout with the stomach flu, sometimes you forget how great normal life can be.

When it comes to politics there tend to be two kinds of people. There are those who you think twice about inviting to barbeques on the deck. They can't go twenty minutes without bringing it all up. They remind us that we are fortunate people who have somehow escaped the end of the world on a regular historical basis. Apparently every four, or even every two years, the potential for the end of world is at hand. Unless we can get out the vote!

And then there are the others. Those who think the whole system, every candidate, every potential bill, every executive decision are nothing more than reminders that inmates are running the asylum. They are all liars. Nobody really cares about the people. Just different re-incarnations of The Man. Most Americans are in the second category. I know I have been there. I can be there.

There is only one problem with this popular- "Who the ____ cares!?" attitude. In a democracy, elected officials are a reflection of the people. Hatred, or even simple apathy towards incumbents or candidates, often means hatred or apathy towards many of our own neighbors and co-workers and friends and family members who support this person. It means we think issues they care about are a joke.

Politicians are mirrors, possibly warped ones, but mirrors of the people.

I have chuckled with talk radio's mocking of candidates. I have laughed aloud at website video parodies. I have stayed up to check out Jon Stewart's opening cracks at the political process. But I am not sure this is always good for me. Or the people I live around.

Yesterday was officially the National Day of Prayer. Honestly, it hasn't meant much to me. Late in college, and a previous Church, I participated in a few of these events. These sort of things typically actually include very little prayer, or the prayers offered clearly come from a certain political philosophy. Either way, I have never really got the point of these official gatherings. Though I know people who have found them very meaningful.

The Scriptures are clear on the importance of coming to God on behalf of our nation, our state, our local community, our political process. These prayers can be incredibly effective. I am not sure everything around us changes. Who can know exactly until we are on the other side? But I know it changes me. It's hard to hate or simply not care about people or even political camps when you pray for them. It's difficult to not see our world and our fellow citizens in a different light after considering them along with our Creator.

When I pray, I find ideologies fade into the background. Other people's pet issues and my own. And then love for people, all people, grows where all of these arguments have previously stood. I become a different person. And when I become a different person, then and only then, can my world become a different place.

I don't care what your political philosophy is. I don't care if you get out the vote, or rarely vote. I don't care. But I do hope and pray that you learn to love all of your fellow citizens. To deeply care for the community, the nation, the world you live in. I care that you learn to love screaming old ladies who get worked up at political rallies. That you love them even when their voices are gone and all they can do is jump up and down and nod their frizzy thinning hair.
As Jesus would say, "These too are your neighbors."

Love you all! Have a great weekend!

Brian

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