Politics...YUCK!

I hate politics. I hate that people think they have to manipulate, lie, cheat and swindel others to get their point across. The idea of having to schmooze people makes me sick. The lust for power and the desire for more fame and fortune has ruined more people than I care to count. I have known plenty of people in my own life...relatively short and eneventful as it may be..whose desire for power over other people has taken their God-given success and replaced it with "success" that brings accolades and kudos from those around them, but their personality...their life...was now stunted and floundering. Instead of being content wtih who they are and trusting God to open the doors to their success they think they have to rub shoulders with just the right people...get just the right people to notice their work...take credit for things they didn't do on their own, and in general, they lose their soul to win the whole world. I hate politics.

However, with that said, it is a part of our lives ~ and in this term I mean the noun, Politics. We live in a Democracy. A place where The People's voice means something. We live in a country where our leaders (for the most part, and originally) are voted upon and instilled with our trust to rule as the majority wishes.

In this year we vote on the most important office of the United States of America.

(sidenote: isn't it interesting that the most important jobs are usually the least paid? President...Teacher...Pastor...hmmmmmmm....maybe there's a method to the madness: the more powerful the position the lesser pay to insure a more humble attitude....)

The main candidates are: Barack Obama and John McCain. Young, Junior Senator from Illinois vs. Older, Experienced American from Arizona. I also like to look at it this way: anti-Christ vs. The People.

This post isn't about the evils of Barack Obama ~ even though the idea of a President who cares not a lick for life...whether born or unborn...scares the crap out of me, as does the idea of a President whose wife has NEVER been proud of the country she is being asked to represent ~ but it is about some thoughts that were spurred by an article about Barack Obama's mother.

I was reading the biography of his mother ~ Stanley Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro at this Snopes page: It's a fascinating article in which the whole story of her life is laid out. Her "marriage" to Obama that doesn't ever really seem to be...her education in philosophy (read communism)...her desire to find something that never seemed to be available to her is intriguing. That, and her son's inability to accept the truth of his life...accept himself for who he is...or even his inability to accept the messed up life as MESSED UP and not romantic and esoteric seems to be very telling.

In another article I was reading about her (I started doing research as to what other news media say about his mother...) I found this paragraph with a quote from Barack Obama Jr's half-sister that spurred this whole thought process...

"She felt that, somehow, wandering through uncharted territory, we might stumble upon something that will, in an instant, seem to represent who we are at the core," said Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's half-sister. "That was very much her philosophy of life - to not be limited by fear or narrow definitions, to not build walls around ourselves and to do our best to find kinship and beauty in unexpected places."

I read this with a rather heavy heart. That first sentence says it all...the second sentence is the excuse. I am raising two young boys. That's not a secret. They are crazy, adventurous, loud, at times disobedient (thankfully) and very much grounded in the truth that they are exactly who God made them to be and that HE made them in HIS image. When they struggle with their mistakes...when they begin to feel like He must have messed up and missed plugging something in somewhere...those are the times they are most assured that in His somewhat incomprehensible plan that very thing has a purpose. It is the hardest to accept at times, but it is also the greatest gift of freedom I can offer my children in the home of the free and the land of the brave. It is in the acceptance of self ~ known self as in "God created me for His Glory" self ~ that I can expect my children to be both free and brave in their lives.

Barack Obama Jr seems to be a man who is fighting for something he knows nothing about, but is hoping that in fighting he will somehow, "stumble upon something that will, in an instant, seem to represent who we are at the core."

The idea that people want him stumbling through with the power of being President of the United States of America behind him terrifies me...and sends me to my knees. I hope it does you, too.