Conversation Point

Blessed Are The Givers

Midterm elections are less than two weeks away. Although we have been hearing about them from the national media for months, the real indicator of how close they loom is the increased frequency of candidate exposure through television ads, newspaper coverage and the lawn signs dotting our streets. Our political process in the United States is unique, still relatively new, and carries with it the heritage of the marketing manifest destiny that more is always better. Inherent to electing our leadership by plastering communication systems with messages claiming to say what a candidate supports, is the reality that we are not being told what the candidates support. We all have come to expect that what we will be seeing, hearing, and eventually avoiding, is all the negatives each candidate wants us to perceive in their opponent. My own conclusion, after muting the third round of commercials between "My Name is Earl" and "The Office," is that I can tell you who is running for the senate in my state and their party affiliations. But I don't know what each person running would like to accomplish if they get the job.

Personally, whenever I have interviewed for a position, I have made it a point to answer all questions directly and honestly, and I especially don't slander other people interested in the same job in the hope that I will look better. This whole campaign process seems to defy the Biblical concept of treating other people how we would like to be treated. We tell our children not to be mean to each other, not to speak badly of other people, but we adults really seem to struggle with that. What if we considered for a moment what a political campaign of common courtesy and respect might look like? Going even one step further, what if political candidates decided to say only positive, hones things about each other and they had debates that focused on making our country a better, healthier, more hopeful nation? What would that say about us as a country?

The potential for that kind of open dialogue in a political campaign simmers with possibilities. We might witness well-thought out questions designed to welcome another's genuine concerns and ideas to improve education, the environment, tax reform and any number of issues. Whether or not the candidates agreed with each other would be a moot point because each would want to understand the other's position and how they came to their beliefs and convictions. The mutual courtesy and respect inherent in that kind of exchange couldn't help but spread the word that working together means more to all of us who live in this country than getting our own way, being right or controlling the overall process of government. My guess is that living that kind of message would translate more positively to a world that mostly sees us as a country with a need to exploit other nations for our own gain.

God's principle of abundance comes into play here, and that is in direct opposition to what we can describe in far too many places in our world today. But describing the world isn't where Jesus based his ministry. He acknowledged his surroundings - the oppression, the hardness of life, the struggle to survive. Then, he asked those around him to take a step back and view the world, not through rose-colored glasses, but through the eyes of a loving God who intends only the best for each of us. If we can learn to stand next to God and act as God would, with love and grace, we would always be able to feel the double blessing that giving imparts. We are often told it is more blessed to give than to receive. Removing that observation from Christmas gift giving, imagine instead applying that principle to daily exchanges between human beings that matter the most: conversations with our families, communications with co-workers and the simple courtesies of smiling, saying hello or holding a door for a stranger as we pass by each other on our journeys. Individually these would add up to innumerable opportunities to give strength, hope, courage, joy, peace and kindness to each other. When some of that comes back your way, it is easy to see what Jesus was trying to convey.

Jesus' lesson is about giving the way God does to us, without attachments to how we have responded in the past or how we may behave in the future. We aren't, as people of faith, to be about basing our choices and behavior on how we see other people acting and reacting, but on what God's abundant mercy, compassion and grace have already given to our lives. Simply because other people are behaving badly, whether it be a co-worker, friend, spouse or political candidate, it doesn't mean we have to respond in kind or expect that the world will never change because that's the way it is. For all those children who jumped off the bridge despite what their parents told them, more of us can walk across that same bridge and meet the people on the other side with a handshake and an appreciation for what can still be.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 3:32 PM