Grace

I have been absorbing all the stories from the media, specifically the political circus going on right now. I have not always followed politics... I used to be blissfully unaware, and now sometimes I wish I still was. I find myself wishing Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart were running- then at least it would be funny. Someone made the comment that the people fit to be be a president don't want to be a president. I believe that to be true... or to put it another way- you have to be insane to want that job. SO we get some crazies.

In politics we're missing something huge: grace. In that grace is playfulness, the idea that we are connected, and giving the benefit of the doubt. Seeing Gabby Giffords step down from her position to fully recover from her injuries due to GUNSHOT wound....tells me something is horribly wrong. There is an article floating around about the confrontation of the Arizona governor and Obama. Our government has been trudging through a mile high pool of molasses because of this missing grace. We're drowning in bitterness, hate, defensiveness.

Jason and I had a nice long talk the other night- one of those good, hard marriage conversations that allows partners to hold a mirror up to each other. It can hurt, but with trust and grace, it can be productive and healing. No one is perfect. No one has the ultimate right answer to the grey and mucky problems of the world. I think politics needs a little couples therapy.

I don't know the answer. I'm not in the government room. But I have been in a room when the calm, non-anxious presence is drowned out by the screaming banshee. I have been in a room when the collaborators are shunned for weakness and the uncompromising are hailed for their strength. I don't know how to fix this, certainly not overnight. But grace has to enter. It must enter.

Maybe I could be the chaplain of the government. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

"Let us pray. Dear God of all people- we come today as humans trying to make this corner of this finite time one worth naming. Lead us into grace. We think people should be able to eat nutritious food, people should be able to wear adequate clothing, people should be comforted and helped when they are sick. So far we have not detected any Cylons in our midst- so we can be safely assured that we indeed are all humans and in need of these basic elements of life. Amen."