On Voting

It's amazing to me that it has been since August 7 that I posted anything.  School has started, which means the I'm-Preoccupied-With-All-Things-School meter has been firmly pegged at the high end for several weeks now, and I haven't gotten back to this project -- though I am carrying around in my head some things I'd like to explore.

Where to start again?  Perhaps addressing a question I was asked not too long ago: "What do you say to someone who says their vote doesn't matter?" In addition to the question, I'm also bothered by a certain political sign on a lawn in my neighborhood -- not because of the sign itself, but because I know the folks who have posted it, and  I fear they haven't considered some important things. (Of course, they may just disagree with me -- isn't that a great thing about freedom?)  So I've been thinking about these things for a few days now, and thought I'd get back into the swing of things by jotting (can one "jot" on a computer?) down some of those thoughts...

Historically, voting is a very rare privilege, so I approach the subject with something almost like reverence - -I get to live in one of the relatively few cultures in history in which ordinary people like me can have at least some say in selecting the people who rule us. (Or in more democratic parlance, "serve as our leaders.") So my first thought is that every vote matters simply as a statement of privilege -- of the amazing ability to have a voice, even if it is a small one.

Beyond that, though, I think some important principles apply and are worth the consideration of everyone who brings to the privilege of voting  any degree of sobriety:

1) The Candidate. I believe that from a Biblical perspective, Being is more highly regarded than Doing.  Who is the candidate?  What values form the core of their being, and the way they see the world?  And out of that framework, how likely are they then to support and uphold Biblically important values?  Will they lobby for and uphold elements of our country or community that are healthy and good?  Will they seek to change elements in our culture or society or world that are unhealthy and destructive?  How does the candidate personally measure what is good and what is evil? Finally (and this is where Doing comes in), does the candidate's general life and actions match his words?  A vote for a person who demonstrates integrity and who upholds foundational values and perspectives could never be wasted, even if they don't win -- see below...

2) The Party.  Unfortunately (to my mind), most candidates come associated with a party, and most will often in the end vote for or in other ways support their party's agenda.  So some of the same questions from above apply:  What does the track record of the party look like?  What do party members typically support and lobby for?  What is the party affiliation of those in the news who uphold the values you believe in?  What is the party affiliation of those in the news who typically oppose those values?  Unless the candidate is an Independent, party affiliation may be an important reason to reevaluate voting for a particular candidate, because of the likelihood of the candidate using her influence to further party objectives.

3) The Voter.  The questions I've raised regarding the candidate and the party assume some important things on the part of the voter.  When it comes to an election, what are Biblically important values? What is good, and what is evil? The Scripture says that God values doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with Him. (Micah 6:8)  How are we to apply justice and mercy in the public square when dealing with modern issues? For one example, the Bible indicates throughout that economic gain belongs to the person who worked for it -- how does that idea get applied with wisdom in the modern U.S.?  The point here is not to supply many specifics (that would probably be many additional articles), but to raise the question for all of us voters -- have we really thought about how the candidate or the party sees the world and forms opinions and judgments about it, and do we agree with that vision and believe that it is the right vision? Or do we at least conclude that of the options available to us, this one or that is the best or the least bad? And from a Christian perspective, have we subjected that vision and our vision to the words of Scripture to see whether they line up with Biblical norms?

4) Success.  If success in voting is that "my" candidate wins, then there are certainly elections in which it is a waste of time to vote.  But I think that is far too shallow a measure of success.  We can vote and let our voice be heard for a number of reasons that are all valuable:

• Voting is (as I expressed above) a privilege in and of itself. It seems to me that to not vote is to undermine the value of the democratic system, to be apathetic, to refuse to be heard, to refuse to come to a conclusion, to refuse to exercise a stewardship that God has given to all who live in free countries. I believe that just for these reasons, one should vote, and vote intelligently.
• From direct democracies to federal republics, the size and strength of the opposition is important. We all have to live together - we all have to build a society that will contribute toward a sustainable, peaceful, productive way of life. (Or we can descend into anarchy -- it has certainly happened before.) My candidate or your candidate or party may not win, but the winning person or group will be checked and held in balance by a significant minority position.  Significant opposition groups can create compromise, mitigate the effects of bad legislation, ensure healthy loopholes or exceptions, and at the very least demand debate. This healthy give and take requires that people work together to try to create something sustainable.  After all, the fundamental element missing in a dictatorship is meaningful opposition. Political power is checked and called to account by opposition - so vote even if you think your position is the minority one: at the very least, you can be part of creating and maintaining meaningful opposition.
• Surprises happen.  Many times people have voted for what they assumed was a minority position only to find that many of their neighbors felt the same way -- and have ended up winning the day.  Some issues in our community have been settled in recent years by literally just a few votes.  Five or six more people voting might have changed the outcome.  So it seems unwise to assume what will happen, and better to exercise the privilege of voting. 
• Personal benefit.  The effort to pay attention, understand the issues, and try to reach conclusions is at the very least good for our minds and can help us develop and understand our own position and values.  Even if in the end you felt your vote didn't "count," if you put some thought into it and tried to engage, exercise your reason, and understand how your values intersect with the larger community and culture, you are coming out ahead.

We often have candidates who have very different visions of what the world should look like, and of how people should live and be governed.  We often have issues on our ballots that are important for shaping our culture either for good or the other way around. As we hear the candidates speak, and as we examine these issues, are we filtering the ideas through a Biblical framework?  When we don't know what the Biblical framework is, are we seeking to find out?  When the issue seems to be concerning a subject to which the Bible does not speak, are we checking to be sure it doesn't? Are we then looking for general Biblical principles that might still apply? 

And in the end, are we then voting for the candidate, or the party, or the issue that to the best of our understanding will promote, pursue, protect, and otherwise work for those principles and values?  Finally, will we vote as an act of stewardship, leaving the results to the God who is sovereign over the affairs of men, and trusting that we don't have to "win" to win?  After all, remember this:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning?... He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than He blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away...  "To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One...                                                                                                   Isaiah 40:21-25

I encourage you to engage, vote, make your voice heard. I don't think there is such a thing as a vote that doesn't count.

When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan.  Proverbs 29:2

Dear Senator

Today I received Senator Mark Udall’s newsletter in my email.  His blog for the day was entitled, “The Wrong Time to Tax the Middle Class.”  (You can read his blog here: http://www.markudall.senate.gov/?p=home .) I tend to agree with that idea, but not with a number of the ideas he put forth in his blog – or, rather, the number of important elements about the economy he did not mention at all.  So, I wrote him a letter, which  I’m reprinting here.  I’ve been thinking about how to say some constructive things about our current economic situation and what I would like to see from our leaders, and perhaps this is a good way to start that train of thought.  Eventually I want to return to the “life as a story” theme, but for now, let’s take a “short cut” through the political and economic scenery…

Dear Senator Udall,

First let me say I enjoyed your blog, "Rising Together from a Summer of Heartache" -- well said.  However, I cannot say the same about your recent blog, "The Wrong Time to Tax the Middle Class."  I'm just hoping you are pandering for votes, or that you can explain how you believe that an economy can be grown "from the middle out."  I'm aware of no such economic theory. Economies, as I am sure you actually know, grow when capital, labor, natural resources, and information are efficiently allocated by a free market to produce goods and services that people freely and genuinely want.  In order for capital to be allocated, there has to be capital, which means two things:  1) the government can't take it all, and 2) people who have it (aka "The Wealthy") have to be free to use it.  The "middle", whose support you are currently trumpeting, have relatively little capital to allocate, and thus cannot be a major growth engine by themselves. Perhaps you think I am wealthy, and just defending my own status - but such is not the case.  I'm firmly lower middle class, and I am certainly aware that I have no ability inherent in my personal finances to help rebuild the economy.

So here's my plea: you are correct that the economy is a top priority for Congress. But you do not address an important fundamental issue: you all in Congress spend bucketfuls more of our money than you take in. That practice must stop. You must find ways to immediately balance the federal budget and gracefully communicate those painful choices to the American people.  You must be honest about cuts in spending that have to be made.  And you must support allowing people with capital the freedom to allocate it as the market indicates.  This means a reduction in corporate income tax, and a reduction (or holding the line) in taxes for the wealthy.  Failure to be courageous and honest will mean that the US will become like Greece, whose leaders are still too cowardly to boldly tell the Greek people that their welfare, nanny state must end.

Our president is arguing in a television commercial right now that this "top down" approach is "how we got into this mess in the first place."  The trouble is, that is both untrue and misleading. First of all, the mess was caused, and continues to be largely continued, by well-intended but misplaced actions by the Federal Government that have interfered with the "invisible hand" of the free market and have caused untold economic pain for millions.  I refer to the extension of housing loans to those unable to pay (a specifically Democratic plan, by the way, that contributed in huge measure to the housing crisis) and to recent monetary policy, "stimulus" bailouts, tax incentives for technology unable to hold its own in the free market, over-regulation of business large and small, and on and on. 

Secondly, our president's claim is misleading because "top down" is a fundamental element of growing a healthy economy. If the "wealthy" don't invest, who will? The poor cannot do it, and the middle class is primarily limited to contributing through honest, diligent labor, smaller-scale saving, and consumer spending.  The government cannot do it, because  fundamentally government is a wealth consumer, not a wealth creator. It is the "top" who have the capital needed (or should have it, if the government leaves them alone) to invest in new ideas, new technology, and new hiring. 

So your article might sound appealing to members of the middle class who are only interested in their own financial circumstances.  I like the idea of a tax cut as much as anybody!  But those of us who are interested in the economy as a whole (and that should be everyone) are hoping to see much bolder, freedom-oriented leadership on economic matters.  

Balance the budget. Stop talking about it and just get it done.  Spread it over a few years, so that the pain can be somewhat mitigated.  But be honest with your voters: we do not have the means to pay for all our current wants, and as a nation we must do the same as individual families do: make challenging choices and live within our means. Be honest with your voters about "the wealthy" too -- it is in everyone's best interest to have a large, thriving upper class. Even though you are yourself a member of that class, do not be shy about defending it.  Protect everyone's freedom (NOT entitlement) to strive for wealth, and everyone's freedom to use their wealth to try to grow more wealth, and the economy will grow. Wealth creation is a virtue, not a vice.

Reduce regulation.  Give businesses more freedom. Pay down the debt. Tell people the truth.  Be bold.  And be courageous enough to put your own job as Senator on the line.

Tax cuts for the middle class will not fix the economy unless significant action is taken in other areas as well, and I think you know that. Don't tell us what you think we want to hear, and don't try to give us what you think we want to have.  Speak of what we need to hear, and do what will lead toward strength and growth in the long run.  We're headed for economic disaster if things do not change soon.  I'm looking for elected leaders who will stop telling only part of the story, stop trying to get me to vote for them, and just help get things fixed.  Are you one of them?

Sincerely,

Erik Ritschard

Buena Vista, Colorado

Mission

Breakfast with a former student this morning, a conversation with a colleague, and emails in my inbox yesterday and today have me thinking about life - and death. The truth is, our lives go by pretty quickly.

Think about the best stories you have ever read or heard or seen depicted in film.  Why are those stories compelling?  What are the elements that move us, inspire us, leave us wishing the story had not ended?

My colleague Ben listened to a book a week or so ago, and was sharing with me that a primary element of the work was encouraging readers (listeners) to think of life - my life - as a story.  What story does my life tell?  Is it a tale that someone else would find interesting?  Does it have any of those elements that are found in our favorite stories?

Kierkegaard wrote,

"There is something missing in my life, and it has to do with my need to understand what I must do, not what I must know -- except, of course, that a certain amount of knowledge is presupposed in every action.  I need to understand my purpose in life, to see what God wants me to do, and this means... that I must find that Idea for which I can live and die. 

(An Entry from the Journal of the Young Kierkegaard, from Classics of Philosophy. Pojman, Louis P. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. p 924, emphasis original)

 That Idea for which I can live and die...  Isn't that the central element of a great story?  The hero has an idea, a passion, a mission, a Great Idea for which many other things are sacrificed. He or she lets go of things that already are, and things that could be, in order to accomplish the one Great Thing.  Consider Frodo in The Lord of the Rings (one of my all-time favorite stories.) For the mission -- for the cause -- Frodo will give up all else that could be attractive in life.  He is even willing to give up life itself in an attempt to save the people and the world he loves.  

Consider the real-life story of a friend, Dave, who has committed himself to the street boys of Kenya.  I marvel at his faith and love and sacrifice when I receive his emailed news updates.  He is living a great story.  Like the heroes in all the great stories, Dave has let go of all the things that could have been, and embraced an adventurous, difficult mission.

In just a short time, I will be dead.  It doesn't matter if I live to be 110 -- in the long tale of history, that is just the blink of an eye from now.  In just a short time, you will be dead.  It is absolutely certain.  Jump far enough forward in history, and it is certain we will both be dead.  What story will be told of our lives?  What mission are we living for?  What might we do that will have value past our short existence?  What Idea are we holding on to for which we can live and die? 

Are you -- am I -- living out a great story?  It takes quite a while to begin to unpack that thought. There are many layers: what is greatness?  What lasts?  What do I most value? And, like Kierkegaard, what must I do?  What is my unique place in Christ's kingdom, and how (if at all) am I living that out? What am I settling for, when I should be reaching farther and higher? What "junk" has captured my attention and what treasures have I thus missed?

Life can be lived in pursuit of the trivial.  But surely for it to be a good life - an abundant life - what is required is a grand adventure, the overcoming of fear with courage, the exchange of the banal for love and purpose and mission. 

What's YOUR story?  Is it full of life?  Is it deeply wonderful?  Are the hard parts an ultimately joyful part of the journey? Are we remembering to be thankful for it? Is it big enough?

What are we living and dying for?

What's in the name?

Why GreenPlaces?  Perhaps I run the risk of having this blog associated primarily with environmental stuff.  That's not my main thrust, though I do care a great deal about our natural environment, which I'm sure will show up here from time to time.  In naming this blog, though, I am responding to again being particularly intrigued and placed at rest by the opening words of Psalm 23:

Our "girls" enjoy a green place to rest after hiking a section of the CT.

The Lord is 
My shepherd,
I shall not be in want.
He makes me
Lie down
in green pastures.


He leads me
beside quiet waters,
He restores my soul.

Green pastures -- green places: places of  rest, abundant life, provision, and soul restoration.  Jani and I spent six days hiking a segment of the Colorado Trail a couple of weeks ago, and found that some sections of the trail were incredibly dry.  How thankful we were for the green places!  Green meant water, life, and rest. We need green pastures.  We need to be reminded that the Lord IS our shepherd.  As we seek Him and commit our lives to His care, He will provide Green Places for our provision, rest, and restoration.

The name also appeals because I've typically had a tendency to think that the green places might be "on the other side of the fence." I've been repeatedly challenged over the last few years to rest in contentment with where I am right now.  That means trusting that the Lord is MY shepherd -- that this pasture he has me in is in fact a green place. 

So my intention here is simply that things I post be full of life in one way or another.  I hope they will be thought provoking, restorative, helpful, encouraging -- that they will add to the life in my life, and contribute to healthy life in any readers who come along. I hope it will be a GreenPlace.

Lord, make me lie down...