It has been twenty days since my last blog entry. Things have been fine around my part of the world, but increasingly busy as we near the Christmas season. I loathe the lead up to Christmas, but everyone seems to love it so much that I hate to be a party pooper. Tomorrow I have a funeral to do in the morning and then we will be off for our trip to Atlanta. I am really looking forward to some time away, even if it is only a couple of days. Sometimes just a change of scenery is enough to put a new perspective on life.
Over the last couple of weeks, we have been potty training young Miss Madeline. Misty took off a day of work at the beginning of the month to help jump start her pottying progress. I do not know what it is about my children, but none of them have had little issue with the sensation of wetting themselves or otherwise. They were just as happy as a lark to stay that way forever. So, Madeline has been the same. I tried to reason with her at first. "Why would you want to live that way?" It is difficult to encourage a toddler to look deep within herself for answers to life's puzzling questions. Well, as the weeks have progressed she has been very successful at home and at her preschool. She will turn three on Thanksgiving Day and we were determined she would be trained by her birthday. She has given up diapers and her pacifier in a short span of time. Thank God for small miracles.
In other news ~ These have been turbulent weeks for our country. The election season finally closed with Missouri being called for Senator McCain, though it was severely anticlimactic since over 8.5 million more people voted for Obama and he was well on his transitional way by last week.
I have been thinking a lot about HOPE lately. Hope was Obama's catch-phrase during the election and clearly resonated with voters at a time when the country appears a little hopeless. Now, whether or not I believe he will be able to deliver all the things he says he will is beyond the scope of this entry, but at the very least he was able to strike a chord with many who were in need of a little hope. I think one of the saddest things for me during this past season was just how void of hope the Republican campaign was this year. I do not want to denigrate McCain or Palin, and much has been written and discussed about the problems of their campaign and why it failed, but I really think the main reason was that they missed this strong need for hope that Americans have been crying out for. I remember Sarah Palin in her speech at the Republican National Convention railing against hopemongers and all the Messianic attributes attached to Barack Obama. I seem to remember something about a winged horse from heaven or something to that effect. I thought it was a pretty good speech.
I guess my problem is that so many evangelicals cling to the Republican party as the standard bearer for God and country that to hear the person that many look to as the salvation of the Republican party denigrating someone basically because their message was hope was the last straw for me. Here is the crux: We as Christians are meant to give hope to the world. The light of Christ brings hope into the world for all people. We are to be the bearers of this hope. Hope is one of the big three: faith, hope, and love. Is there anything more Christian than to offer another person hope? Take Obama and anything overtly political out of the equation. What is wrong with hope?
I understand that many see Obama as an anti-Christian leader because of his stance on certain social issues. I am not going to deny any of these issues, nor will I bring up any of the myriad of social issues many Christians could care less about. But I wonder if it is ever right to denigrate hope or to say that hope is something to be scoffed at, something for naive idealists.
I admit that I am an idealist. It is one of my greatest strengths and one of my greatest weaknesses. I want to believe the best about people and I am often disappointed by them when they do not live up to what I believe they are capable of. But I am hopeful that soon our country will be on better footing throughout the world, that we will begin to come together in a way that we have not in a long time.
I am also hopeful Christian leaders will stop talking about the good old days when everyone was white and went to church. Truth is, more people attend church regularly in 2008 than ever before in the history of our nation. Maybe these are the good days, we just don't recognize them. Maybe we just need a little hope.
P. S.: Just so it is completely understood: I do not think Obama is the second coming. I do not think Sarah Palin is a moose-killing hatemonger. I do not think McCain is a hateful old beer distributor. But I do think Focus on the Family may just be a little bit divisive and here's why . . . .
UPDATE & NDY GIG
12 years ago
3 comments:
I was waiting for the why... and the blog ended.
Only thing I can say about hope is, "Hope floats."
Follow the link under "here's" to find out why I think Focus is divisive.
Ugh. I had to quit reading. It was just too disgusting.
A few years ago, while working with the Salvation Army in the U.S., one of our territories out west decided that they were going to allow people to add other members of their household to their health insurance. The move was meant to help out people who had older parents living with them, but Focus On The Family decided that it was a move to cater to the homosexual community. Dobson destroyed us on his radio show. Absolutely tore us a new one, asking all Christians to boycott the Salvation Army, to stop giving, and to stop shopping in our thrift stores. In essence, and to keep a small segment of society from sharing their partner's health care, he was prepared to destroy the the world's biggest charity, a member of the church family, and an absolute lifeline for many people. In the end we caved and all he ended up doing was keeping a few people from being able to insure their elder parents.
At the time I didn't know how I felt about the issue. I wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do or not. But I remember wondering what in the world Dobson's problem was and how in the world he could find it in his heart to badmouth an organization like the Salvation Army.
Today my opinion and respect for the man has plummeted. When the focus of your ministry is fear and hate, you don't have a ministry, you have a political platform that's about as far from the cause of Christ as you can possibly find yourself.
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