I have been toying with the idea of spending less time and energy on the subject of politics and government in this space.
It’s the political season, and emotions are fever pitch. Lines have been drawn, sides have been chosen, and if social media feeds are any indication, folks are increasingly panicked because democracy itself is threatened by the other side.
I am certainly not going to change any minds, especially with my contrarian belief it doesn’t matter. First, if this was a democracy, do you really think these would be the choices? Second, I am of the firm belief that freedom is an internal thing that can’t be taken away. Yes, you can beat, batter and otherwise force a person into submission, even kill, but in the end all you managed to do is kill a free person.
The forces that warn that we will become a fascist state if the other side wins are conveniently overlooking their own concerted efforts to make this a Soviet state.
See? If I had any sense, I would talk about topics other than politics and government, while I still have a handful of readers. I’m pretty much a “pox on both your houses” kind of guy.
Through all of this, I keep hearing the sage words of the philosopher Tom Petty: “Most things I worry about never happen anyway.”
Of course, how do I hawk my books like War IS the Crime, or Echoes of Freedom Past, or Refuse to be Afraid, if I step back from the fray? The easy answer there is that the books will still be there to be hawked after the election, Lord willing.
So …
What would I write about with everyone screaming in my ears about politics and government? Well, I have already spent a great deal of time emphasizing a very anti-political thought: “Love your neighbor, and everyone is your neighbor.” That’s certainly still a theme worth exploring.
And while I’m drawing a thought from the New Testament, there are plenty of directions I could go with this: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”
And, of course, “the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
I draw my blog post ideas from my journals, and those possibly will become my “Picture of Dorian Gray,” where I can tuck my dismay and my outrage and my irritation at the cacophony, and try as I might, no doubt some of that may leak out through my choices of words.
But I think I would like, from this day forward, at least through November, to make this a safe space, where the theme is first and foremost, “Let’s love, neighbor, and pursue whatever is lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy in a spirit of joy, peace, kindness and all those other fruits.”
I don’t know about you, but I feel healthier already.
