“Ultimately, we hope whatever they do is seeking first the Kingdom of God and embodying their politics with their lives rather than just trusting in a single candidate or a single politician to change the world for them. We vote every day with our lives. We vote every day with our feet, our hands, our lips and our wallets. Ultimate change does not just happen one day every four years.” Shane Claiborne, quoted from a RelevantMagazine.com article.
This morning our country woke up to a victory of change. But no matter which candidate won, change is in the air as our next president has to come up with a way to solve our economic woes, our failed foreign policy, our climate change, our moral poverty. Every day on my DenverPost Twitter feeds, its story after story of people dying, being stabbed, children going missing. Its a depressing thing listening to the news, and that’s just local!
Because I work in PR (or maybe I work in PR because), I have a tendency to put a positive spin on things. I don’t necessarily take sides, and look a the positive from all angles. I was ‘undecided’ in this election till almost the last minute because I truly believed either man would bring great change to the table – just different how it was brought. As a Christian, I had to analyze what was important to my beliefs, and not the standard “religious right” crap that I’m supposed to subscribe to as a Christian. Right to Life goes way beyond unborn children – what about the poverty in Sudan where a child has to live in a camp so not to get kidnapped; what about the orphans from the earthquakes in China and Afghanistan, and the people who were left without shelter. Don’t they all have a right to life too? Jesus called us to serve the poor and the downtrodden, not to bomb abortion clinics.
I have a choice to make everyday how I am going to react to situations – am I going to be judgmental to a coworkers opinion, or am I going to be full of grace and love them no matter what. I like to think I do the latter, but it is a challenge. In order to change the world, it has to start at the ground level, in our jobs, our neighborhoods, with our friends. Obama isn’t going to change the world alone, its up to all of us to do small things daily to change the community around us.
