2016 Election

I completed my ballot today. As a registered independent, my vote on candidates and ballot initiatives was a mix of party affiliations.  Like many, I wish we had better candidates at the top of the ticket. I realize the 3 primary candidates for the Democratic party would have been vilified and “hated” by their opponents no matter what – Clinton (for her secrecy and investigations), Sanders (for being a “communist” and not really a Democrat), and O’Malley (for being too inexperienced) – and all three because they would be “carrying on” from Obama’s “failed” policies.

On the Republican side, had the Republican party elected Kasich (I am almost certain) or probably 2-3 others in the running, the party would very likely have received my vote in this election. However, the party picked the candidate I least could vote for; a person whose public (what I can witness first-hand) lies, secret-ness, and crookedness are the highest I have ever seen – and yes, I know about Clinton’s issues on these same points so there is no need to point those out to me. While I understand how Trump’s words resonate with many across our country, I don’t trust his actions or his temperament, and I believe that he is least fit for the role among those who ran for the office this year. In many ways, I wish Trump had run as a Democrat (which at one point was his affiliation) just so I could then see what many of my deeply committed Republican friends would have said about him and his candidacy unfettered from their loyalty to their party.

When the final tallies in the Republican primary came in and showed Trump the winner by “huge and historic” totals*, I realized I no longer recognized the party of my grandfather (a Reagan picture in his kitchen), my parents and siblings, or of my youth. With such a large and experienced set of candidates to choose from, and with a stated desire to take back the White House and to expand their base, Trump is the candidate the Republican primary voters elected to be their torchbearer? I don’t understand and I can’t comprehend it, but it did make it easier for me to make my decision.

Because of my Christian faith (I am a white, male, educated evangelical Christian) and the words and actions of the Republican party’s elected leader, I find myself disagreeing with the party on immigration (build a wall another country pays for), refugee policy (refuse to accept people, children and women included, who are fleeing from the most violent and viscous killing terror group of our time), and global trade (that negotiations aren’t about give and take between the self-interest of all countries, but should only focus on America-best stances). Gone from the top of the GOP agenda (by the words and actions of its torchbearer) were issues I resonated with and believed in. Some issues still made their way to the party platform but, to be realistic, if Trump wins, I don’t believe he will feel beholden to the platform or the party, since he will have won without much of their help. That said, there are many policies and platforms (and definitely flawed candidates) of the Democratic party that I also disagree with because of my convictions.

No matter who wins today, I have friends and (I believe) family members who voted for Trump willingly and, in some cases, enthusiastically. These are all good people who mean a lot to me and my family. I did not unfriend them or block them from my FB feed because I wanted to hear and see what resonates with them and because I believe they hold their convictions sincerely, and I know them to be caring people who live and love purposefully. I believe their intentions and desires for our country mimic a lot of my own, and I am committed to working alongside them, in love, to try and better our community and to hold our elected and appointed officials to account for their actions and their words.

Finally, I am most grateful for a country that allows its people to vote for very different candidates and platforms. Not all countries/leaders in the world allow such things to happen. I pray that our collective voices might join together after the election to seek unity in purpose even when we disagree in practice. And, may God use our political process to serve the needs of our own people, particularly our most vulnerable, without doing harm to the vulnerable people in other countries of the world. Put another way, may God’s blessings poured out on our country somehow, someway, be a blessing to the rest of the world in the days ahead.

*A side note: I personally witnessed Trump benefiting from a lot of free publicity from our national media because those companies made a ton of money off of his candidacy. One day, early on in the primaries, during the lunchtime news, a local San Diego news station “cut live” to a Trump speech with 2 minutes left on their show – with no commentary, no analysis and no counter voice – just a “filler” prop to get eyes to stop on their station. I had never witnessed this before but, when I did, I knew that Trump had a sway ($$) on our national media that was beyond anything I had ever seen. I believe that this influence had a big impact on his ability to get his message out and to attract votes regardless of what he said or the positions he held.

The new Anne Frank

       

Nicholas Kristof has a powerful piece in the NYT. I was not aware of such parallels to Jews during WW2. This is a difficult read. The quote below most gripped me.

“No one takes their family into hiding in the heart of an occupied city unless they are out of options,” notes Mattie J. Bekink, a consultant at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. “No one takes their child on a flimsy boat to cross the Mediterranean unless they are desperate.”

The vast majority of refugees are suffering people who only want safety and help for their families. However, our media and often our public discourse in the US focuses more (sometimes only?) on the few who pose a great risk.

While not wanting to dismiss those safety concerns (we still need to talk about them), I pray our country’s greater desire and our larger conversation is on how we as a people, through our government, churches, and communities, can do more to help the vast majority of people in need (as if they were us and we were them – what would we want them to do for us?).

One thing to do is work harder towards defeating ISIS. Another thing to do is to shame the governments that continue to prop up a government that would hurt and kill its own people out of fear of losing power. Another thing we can do is find ways to adequately and safely welcome and care for tens of thousands of innocent people impacted by the war who are suffering, like this little girl and the boy in the ambulance (another recent picture that made the news).

God, give us wisdom, strength, courage, and compassion for such a time as this!

Fourth of July

Freedom.

Without doing a thing on my own, I was born into a country that consists of 5% of the world’s population but that produces and consumes 25% of the world’s economy. Within such a bountiful country, and under no effort on my part, I was born into a family of educated parents, who were middle class. I did not choose to be born white, heterosexual, able-bodied and male. Because of my physical attributes and family background, I have rarely had to think about the lived experiences of others not like me, because most of my experiences in life and in my home country were geared towards people who were very similar to me and my family.

Thus, I often never thought of how rare it might be for someone to have so much freedom to choose the kinds of things I get to choose in regards to use of my time, resources, friendships, work, neighborhood, etc. Certainly, many people in my family and my country have died and fought and built what I am benefiting from today and I cannot forget such sacrifices, nor do I take those sacrifices lightly. On this day of freedom, I celebrate the freedom to vote, to work, to pay taxes for public services, to worship and practice my religion, and to be able to live where I do, and to work for a great organization in a beautiful city. Indeed, I wish every person in the world had the opportunities I have been given.

To that end, I am dwelling today on the Biblical mandate found in Luke 12:48 – “to whom much is given, much is required.” What does my freedom and my country’s freedom mean: For children and women trapped in human bondage for sex or labor? For refugees fleeing oppressive governments or dangerous warlords or majority cultures that significantly discriminate them for being minorities in culture, religion, or ethnicity? For child brides or for children of parents working in the rock quarries/dangerous mineral mines, who have no other choice beyond a short life of hard labor? For physically or mentally disabled people who don’t have loving care givers, or for those loving care givers whose lives are forever confined to caring for their loved ones? For people unable to get good healthcare or a decent education, a good-paying job, or a home to live in? For those in prison, especially those who are innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted?

On this day, I contemplate anew the abundance of freedom I am blessed with and I ask myself what can I do to use such freedoms to improve the lives of suffering people – from Dhaka, Bangladesh to Baghdad, Iraq and to Istanbul, Turkey, from southern Sudan to Southeast DC, from Mexico to Manila, and from the poorest communities of San Diego to those living in the slums of Sao Paulo? What can I do to provide more freedom to women whose bodies are daily abused, to those whose lives are never given a chance to live due to the abundant availability of abortion, and to those whose minds and bodies are completely addicted to drugs, alcohol or pornography? And, what can I do to help those so gripped by fear of the “unknown” or the “other” and so trapped by disgust, perhaps blinded by their own privileges and unaware of our country’s cultural selfishness, that their freedom to love, to learn from others, and to show compassion is severely limited? What can I do to help bring freedom there?

This fourth of July I celebrate freedom and I pray that my life, family, church, work, community, country, and friends around the world challenge one another to use our freedoms and blessings to bring freedom and blessings to the most abused and most vulnerable people in our communities, and across the globe.

Many of us have been given much.

On this day of freedom, what might we “sacrifice” so that others can gain some of the freedoms we enjoy?

Guns, Muslims, and Me

If “guns” don’t kill people but people kill people, then “Muslims” can’t kill people – only people can kill people. And if we refuse all human decency to anyone who uses a “gun,” I mean a “Muslim,” to hurt or kill me, then we should ban all “Muslims”, I mean “guns,” because one could be used to kill me. And, do bombs actually kill people or are they like guns? And, does my second amendment rights to bear arms include owning bombs or just guns? I am as scared of a gun as I am a bomb in the hands of someone who is making a bad choice to randomly hurt others at the moment I cross his/her path.

If all “Muslims” can terrorize us based on recent events, then so too can all white males terrorize our local grade schools, movie theaters, and universities. Am I the next category of people we might want to ban from our shores? If we are worried about Christians being targeted specifically, then we should be as scared of flag waving white male Dylann Roof and what radicalized him in our own backyard to shoot up a Bible Study in a Church, as much as what is happening a half world away.

I wish we all would spend as much time discussing reducing all acts of violence in our lives and the lives of millions of people in places all around the world, as we do focusing on one group of people most of us would claim as the “other” because we do not know many of them nor have friendships built from among their group.

We are all still humans – making good choices and bad choices every moment of our lives. I want to help stop people from making bad choices that hurt others, but that requires me to engage in a conversation with people about choices (theirs and mine), and it may mean that when I listen carefully, I will find that, from their lived experiences, some of the choices I have made have hurt rather than helped the situation.

How we use our words matters and we must be careful not to demonize an entire category of people, no matter how much we disagree with the actions of some within their broader community. If you do, not only are you using the same faulty logic that is used by those embracing extreme fundamentalism to terrorize all they consider the “other” but eventually me (a white male) or you could become the “other” that everyone in your community fears.

Violent Nation

We are a violent nation

We kill our unborn children, more out of convenience than we care to admit

We have a drug problem of huge proportion (glamorized in our media and in all sectors of society) and are not adequately addressing it or its violent consequences

We introduce our young people to our addiction to violence in the movies we produce, the TV shows we watch, the music we listen to, and the games we play – and that we allow our children to consume at ever younger ages

We initiate and support wars, more out of selfish economic and political reasons than for compassionate or just purposes

We promote the degradation of women and girls (which leads to violence) through the glamorization of subtle pornography in our public media and hardcore versions of it being freely available on-line to all age groups

We allow capital punishment despite its historic inequities

We haven’t properly dealt with our historic and ongoing abuse and violent destruction of the lives and culture of Native Americans by all subsequent immigrants

We haven’t properly dealt with our historic role and the economic benefit we received as a nation from the violent trade in human slaves we profited from for hundreds of years

We allow legitimate access to the kinds of guns that are designed only to terrorize for 99% of people in our country – and don’t want to study the consequences of this proliferation of violence driven by economic interests and fear

As a nation, we violently close our borders to people, particularly those who are economically poor, but we then  use national violence to protect our goods and capital/profits to freely flow to anywhere in the world so we can continue getting the “low price guarantee”

We struggle to provide (and sometimes fight against providing) adequate medical care, mental health resources, and protection against financial ruin to everyone in our land, because we are all about freedom and small government, but then we are shocked by desperate people who do desperate, violent things and wonder how no one could catch the signs of loneliness, isolation, and radicalization (whether by hate/religious extremism groups in the US or overseas)

We are scared, we are lonely, and we live with violence all around us

We need community

We need civil dialogue and debate on all of the above topics – not more media sound bites and monologues from people unwilling to LISTEN to others

We need to call out language where we demonize the “other” as a whole category of people we don’t understand, we do not like, and we dismiss fully.

We need to accept that every other person on the planet is a HUMAN before he/she is a citizen of a nation – and that no one gets to decide where he/she is born or what culture raises him/her until he/she is old enough to live independently.

Ultimately, no one is “good” and no one is “bad” – we all are people – who DAILY make “good” choices and “bad” choices with how we treat others, how we respond to those we disagree with, how we love our neighbor, the stranger, even our enemies.

In a nation of violence, it is counter-cultural to love, to speak kindly, to try and understand another’s perspective, especially when it is unsafe or unprofitable or dangerous.

I want to be a person of love.