Election

I’m ready for the campaign season to end.

Like most voters, my mind is made up at this point. I’ve watched all the debates. I’ve watched parts of the conventions. I’ve read about the candidates’ positions on issues, and I’ve heard their stories. I’ve heard the narratives adopted by journalists at various points in the campaign as well, making a drama out of the fairly monotonous, and often mean-spirited, repetition of arguments on both sides.

As usual, neither candidate exactly represents my beliefs and values. I like the republican priority on small government and lower taxes; I like the democrat priority on caring for the needy. I value human life at all stages of development, and I take seriously the biblical mandate to care for the Garden with its many forms of non-human life as well. I want both to preserve wild nature and to encourage job creation. I am a jumble.

Does it matter that much who wins? I will vote; I will fulfill the responsibility and privilege we have to vote. But in the end, I am skeptical that politics is where the real power is in this country. If you’ve ever watched the documentary Inside Job you may share my suspicion that the real power is in Wall Street, rather than in any entity we vote for. It’s hard to have any faith in a political process so disfigured by corruption.

Bill Hybels has said that the church is the hope of the world. I would agree, so long as we take the view that the church is more organism than institution, as St. Paul suggests in his metaphor of a body with Christ as the head. The vehicle of change in our country is individuals choosing, freely, to care for one another — to give generously to those in need, not compelled by taxes — to work hard and, wherever possible, create opportunities for others — to be committed to our spouses, our children and our aging parents — to be honest and fair in our dealings — to care for the places we love.

This weekend we re-watched Gettysburg, a movie based on one of the best novels I’ve ever read, Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels. Here is a scene where someone exemplifies the ability — or rather, the choice — to retain a humane perspective and bearing in the most inhumane of settings. Colonel Chamberlain, commander of the Maine regiment that defended Little Round Top against fearsome odds, addresses a group of mutineers deposited into his care just before Gettysburg. In the midst of the horror of war, he lifts the focus to ideals. If it can be done on the battlefield, surely it can be done in the more abstract, verbal battlefields of election year.