Politics, by M

As election season is almost upon us, I find myself talking about politics kind of a lot these days. (Now, "kind of a lot" is relative, as it’s actually like half an hour a week as opposed to… well, mostly never). I’ve been doing a little bit of reading about the Republican candidates, through the headlines of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (ha!), random friends’ posts on facebook (ha! again) and various articles in Newsweek (which mom and dad kindly gifted me for Christmas). To be perfectly honest, I’m kind of over the whole deal already.

…which, I suppose wouldn’t be all that terrible if not for one thing. My super sweet and awesome boyfriend is a professional editorial cartoonist. Ie: he gets paid to know what’s up in politics and have a super strong opinion about it. (If I may brag on him for a second, you should check out his website here or see some of his work in The Best Editorial Cartoons of 2012 on Amazon here.) His undergrad degree was Political Science and he absolutely loves thinking and talking about current events in politics. This is something that I like about him because it makes him really great at what he does. However… let’s revisit my point about how I’m tempted to just really not care about the presidential race, current events, foreign affairs, etc. Haha

We’ve spent some time talking about this, and the conclusion that I always come to is that my desire to not care comes from feeling like caring is a fruitless pursuit. It seems to me that wars will always continue, the poor will always exist, inequality will never be fully eradicated… and no country or government or army or president is going to fix that. Different political parties have different ideas for how to fix these problems, but I’m hard pressed to believe that any party or person actually will. We live in a broken world and no US president is going to be our Savior. Fact.

So, I end up feeling defeated by the whole thing (very Ecclesiastical haha) and it makes me want to throw in the towel. Moreover, something inside of me feels like maybe I'm secretly a better Christian for not caring... like I should just get a "Jesus for President" bumper sticker and be done with it already.

Well, this little theory was challeneged recently when I came across a couple of quotes from Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest and world-renowned theologian. I've been reading his book The Return of the Prodigal Son (it's great, by the way) and in Part III, he examines the attributes of the father in that famous parable. Naturally, he's talking about God and this is what he has to say about God's response to the world's brokenness:

“God rejoices. Not because the problems of the world have been solved, not because all human pain and suffering have come to an end, nor because thousands of people have been converted and are now praising him for his goodness. No, God rejoices because one of his children who was lost has been found.”

And thus, here should be our response:

“I have to learn to ‘steal’ all the real joy there is to steal and lift it up for others to see. Yes, I know that not everybody has been converted yet, that there is not yet peace everywhere, that all pain has not yet been taken away, but still, I see people turning and returning home; I hear voices that pray, I notice moments of forgiveness, and I witness many signs of hope. I don’t have to wait until all is well, but I can celebrate every little hint of the Kingdom that is at hand.”

Well, shoot. I'm thinking that this means that I can't just thow up my hands and walk away from the whole politics scene. Though we are not to take our government as our Savior, perhaps we have a godly responsibility to participate nonetheless. I can't let the depth of the brokenness stop me from participating in God's plan for this world's redemption. I can't let the pain and suffering I see steal my joy at God's promise of a better hope and future for us. I guess that means I need to keep on doing my research about which person is going to be the best choice to help us get there. Dangit.