Praying for Our Nation's Leaders Today in Church

Dear Leader,

Today in the small village of McDowell, Virginia, we gathered at the usual time for worship.  At the beginning, as is our usual custom, we lifted up our prayer concerns, which included you.  During worship, we prayed our concerns for our nation’s leaders out loud and included our blessings for you in those prayers.  It went something like this . . .

Gracious God, 
We pray for the leaders of our nation.  We ask that You grant them all spirits of honesty. . . hearts of reconciliation and conciliation . . . perseverance in the face of challenge . . . lives lived and decisions made which follow the leading of Your Spirit . . . ears to hear the will of the people and wisdom to know when that will should be ignored in favor of what is best . . . 
And we pray that You grant our leaders showers of Your blessings . . . the blessings of good health and wellness . . . loving family . . . safe haven . . . happy lives . . . love and forgiveness . . . renewed energy for the task at hand . . .and inner peace – that peace which surpasses all human understanding . . . 
Amen.

This is the prayer I will send to our nation’s leaders from one small congregation in the western mountains of Virginia.

It took some getting to, this prayer.  There were jokes and sarcasm, despair and disgust, prayers for our own individual and particular political agendas, and a very difficult time in naming blessings as we grappled with the brokenness of our political process in this particular season.

The preacher (that’s me) got a little crusty with the congregation (shame on her) in the grappling.

This is at the core of my own preacherly struggle: when is it good, necessary, right, important, to create space for the naming of frustration, anger and just good old-fashioned venting of spleen – especially when it comes to praying?  And when is it time to let go of all that and genuinely pray for the good of the other, even and especially another with whom we are angry, frustrated, etc.?

Can I genuinely pray these blessing prayers equally for Ted Cruz and Barak Obama?  If not, is that about who’s right or wrong?  Or is that just about my own unwillingness or inability to let go of my own judgments even on the holy ground that is prayer?

I tend to think it’s the latter, but then that puts me in the place of judging others who think differently.

Turns out it’s just as hard, if not harder, to pray our politics as it is to live them.

Cliff Nonsense: A Fiscal Farce

Fiscal cliff – really?

A fiscal cliff is a family facing foreclosure and loss of a roof over their heads.

A fiscal cliff is hospital bills more than can ever be paid in a lifetime and worse, the delay of treatment for want of the cash – and yes, it still happens today.

A fiscal cliff is no food and no means to get any – the pictures from sub-Saharan Africa are real-time capture of real-death happening before our eyes.

A fiscal cliff is tent-living in a refugee camp, relying upon the kindness of strangers in UN t-shirts we of the US are no longer interested in funding because of politics.

A fiscal cliff is no treatment for your mental illness because no one cares enough.

A fiscal cliff is telling ourselves the Great Lie that we care too much rather than too little as we turn away from the images on our televisions, convinced we can do nothing, secretly knowing that we can do much, but have not the will to do it.

Congress and the President ‘balancing’ a fictitious budget a fiscal cliff?

Give me a break.

What Exactly Did Mitt Romney Win?

He did it: Mitt Romney won the debate.  Ask anyone.

Mitt Romney looked presidential.

And apparently the man who actually is the president didn’t ‘look like’ a president, whatever that means.

I’ll get to who I think won the substantive debate another time, but I’m very clear on who lost and it wasn’t either of the men on stage last night.  It was the pundits and pollsters and people who ‘decided’ the win/loss based on beauty pageant criteria.

In case I wasn’t clear, WE are the losers.

I continue to wonder what people who simply listened to the debate on the radio, or the blind, think of who ‘won’ or ‘lost’.  I know television is a visual medium, but don’t you think it’s bit ridiculous that John F. Kennedy was declared the winner against Richard Nixon because of make-up and its lack?  Or do we really comfort ourselves that the national judgment against Nixon that fateful night was somehow clairvoyant about the man Nixon was or would become?  Really?  Or did we just get lucky?

Here’s the reality check: you can’t tell much about a man by how he looks (or a woman, for that matter).  And that’s the truth.  Ask any woman who has been raped by someone she knows.  Or the parents of a child abused by someone they entrusted with their dearest treasure.

Our visual ‘truth’, ‘goodness’, and ‘character’ detectors are notoriously faulty.

I had an initial reaction last night about the debate winner and loser based on content.  As I said in yesterday’s blog, I flowed the debate.  That meant that I spent much of my time head down, listening and taking notes about what I heard and almost no time at all, save during the opening and closing remarks, to watching the two men.  Their visual impact on me was quite limited.  Thus my own ‘take’ about what was happening was very different than other folks in the room.  The things they had noted I did not see.  My not seeing was actually intentional: I wanted to minimize, as best I could, my own biases and preconceptions and come to a conclusion based on the content of the debate.  Of course it’s impossible to totally free one’s self of the baggage brought to any experience, but there are tricks to detaching even from ourselves: avoiding the visuals is one of them.

As Gwen Ifill noted after the debate, the punditry had asked for a policy wonk debate (one where the debaters actually addressed the issues rather than engaging in political tap dancing), but once they got one, they judged the two men according to the rules of tap dancing. (I paraphrase freely, of course).

Like I said, I’m on my way to flow the contents of the debate to come to my own conclusions about who carried the day.  I’ll let you know my results.

In the meantime, can we all just take a breath and ponder what each man actually had to say and what it means for the governance of our country and stop thinking about who ‘looked’ the part?  Please?

Tonight's "Debate"

I put the word debate in quotes intentionally.  Whatever the exchange tonight between Mrs. Obama and Romney, it is not a debate.  As a collegiate debater in my youth, please take my word on this.

And the passing from the stage in the 1980's of the League of Women Voters was a true loss, for the League, as they pointed out in their decision not to sponsor the debates any longer, looked out not for the candidates, but for the electorate.

That said, I have prepared myself a flow chart to score, in debater fashion, which speaker carries each point.  So it was with interest that I checked out CNN this morning with its article on 5 Things to Watch for in Tonight's Debate.

Alas, I am again disappointed. #1 on CNN’s things to watch for?  “Who’s presidential”.

Sigh.

The most important thing for me to know tonight, apparently, is not how they would actually address the things about which government actually has some sway, but whether they ‘look’ and I ‘feel’ that they ‘look’ presidential.

I’m guessing (it’s a pretty safe bet) both men will wear conservative suits and ties, with nice hair cuts and shined shoes.  Beyond that, what exactly does a president ‘look’ like?  Other than being male and generally tall for their generation, there seems to be no precise definition.

Some were thin, some fat, some classically handsome, some not so much.

To be fair, the author went on to note that to ‘look’ presidential is to have a certain ‘tone’ – what he calls ‘composure and stature’, or acting like they belong to the job.

Yet I remain puzzled.  Mr. Obama, by definition acts presidential, as he is already the president.  He may not ‘act’ like what folks want him to, but when he acts, he is being presidential for the simple fact that he is (the president).

For some, acting presidential means being ‘strong’ enough to pound your opponent to the ground.  Others seek someone more in the image of the dignified statesman.  Still others are looking for that indefinable ‘something’ that says ‘President’ to them.

But this is all star gazing.

If we want someone who seems presidential, then we should have elected Michael Douglas from American President, or Jeff Daniels (playing Washington), or maybe best of all, Henry Fonda as Abraham Lincoln.  Not having ever seen Mr. Lincoln in real time, I am guessing Mr. Fonda looked a better Lincoln than Lincoln ever did.

I don’t need stature in a president.  What I require as a voter is competence.

I don’t look for composure – both these men have already passed the test of time on the campaign trail – I look for solid ideas and plans for how to accomplish those ideas.

I don’t mind if they’re human; in fact, I prefer it.  Thus I do not especially care that Mitt Romney looked a bit silly trying to bet Rick Perry money during one of the debates.  Nor do I care that Obama told Hilary Clinton that she’s ‘likeable enough’.

What I do care about is their vision; their philosophy; their worldview.

I care about whether they care – not about me so much as the poor, those who need and require their care.

I care about whether they have the personal integrity and courage (and it takes courage to resist the exercise of power) not to bomb our enemies.

So here are my two most important questions for tonight:

Mr. Romney, if you wish to eliminate or substantially change the approach of progressive taxation, as your talking points suggest, upon what basis do you claim that this shift actually results in an increase in prosperity for everyone?  And as a subset of that question, if you have to sacrifice one of your taxation goals in order to achieve a balance to the budget, which goal is the most expendable from your point of view?

Mr. Obama, given that as president, you are required to work with Congress, how do you propose to enact your economic programs (or any of your programs, for that matter) in the face of organized, concerted congressional opposition?  It is not enough to merely blame Congress.  What do you plan to do about it?

I look forward to your answers, gentlemen.