Political Grace

If ever a post title was within itself an oxymoron…

I tend to stay away from opinionated political conversations. I don’t feel I am educated in the newest hot topics enough to contribute. However, today I plead for grace.

This blog will stay completely neutral as far as right or left is concerned. Having said that, my subject is President Obama. I’m sure the campaign attacks designed to heighten political popularity will be over soon since voting will take place next Tuesday. Still, the right to vote was not created so we could completely bash fellow humanity. 

THERE ARE ALWAYS TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY. 

Any time a campaign add shows a picture of a political figure with a negative statement such as, “Harry voted with Sally to drain the school water fountain…” they leave it sounding atrocious so you will hate Harry because Sally is already supposed to be so evil. Remember, there could have been a reason to drain the water fountain that will definitely not be included in a negative campaign add. I don’t expect you are learning anything as you read this, and my purpose for writing this is not a "vote responsibly" reminder.

My plead for grace comes from how often I have heard President Obama’s name in the negative attack adds. It is true he has been in office for almost half his term. It is true that he campaigned for this office by promoting and promising change. It is also true that our expectations of this office are completely irrational (for our current president and any president).

Irrational expectations include:
- The economy to be completely turned around in less than two years. It takes everything longer to get fixed than it did to get broken. An entire nation’s economy is no exception.
- The golden touch mentality. Every other person in our country is allowed trial and error space. I would hope an educated person, like anyone who would win an election for presidency, would make fewer errors than the general public, but that in no way makes them perfect. To take this a step further, if our president was perfect, we would not need Jesus. So there.
- Change. One of the biggest repetitive attacks is “Obama promised change and has failed to deliver.” I barely passed my high school government class (another reason I usually stay out of these conversations) but I have a basic understanding of Congress and the House of Representatives. We have people representing the people who have been voted in for right and wrong reasons. These representatives from every state, Republican and Democrat, are a part of this "Change". They can make it happen or they can table a bill, pigeon hole it, filibuster, in other words, make things not happen. The president (again current, past, and present) is making decisions along side a huge group of people.
*Have you ever been a part of a large talkative committee? Have you noticed how difficult it is to get anything done? You usually end up talking a lot (or listening a lot), often things either don’t happen, or frustrated people hand over projects to loud people just to make them be quiet. Can you imagine being a member of Congress??

And now for grace.

My first year of teaching our school was merged with a low performance school that was shut down only days before the school year started. Talk about a rough start. We got through it and continued with the school year, but there still seemed to be a bit of surprise when test scores across the board went down in comparison to the previous year. Logically, is that really a shock? We needed time. The next year our scores were up from my first year, but still not where they needed to be. Logically, is this still surprising? 

CHANGE TAKES TIME.

My husband is about to begin his first senior pastorate position. We could not be more excited about this new step into our future. But if my husband is held to the same standards as the President of the United States, our family will be scrutinized, ostracized, and miserable. Ryan has shared stories with me of other ministers’ experiences so that I will hopefully be more prepared for our life in ministry. He has told me that it is completely normal for a pastor to be in a church over five years before his or her influence becomes significant to the people.

Return to the President. I know four year terms were decided for a reason, but based on the time context of when that decision was made, I honestly believe four year terms are outdated. With televised, live news, and the internet, everyone knows every piece of information and people are attacked for yawning at the wrong moment. Good grief.

Grace. If we spent half as much time praying as we did forwarding negative, exaggerated emails, we may have a different thought about politics all together.

Lord, save us from ourselves.