Election Day

Today is the primary in Kansas. While the voter turnout is lower during primaries, it will be higher this day because of so many contested races for the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and state, city and even county seats. I do not intend to endorse or say who I think the "finalists" should be as we look toward November.

The ads surrounding some of the candidates have been brutal, ugly and have saddened me. I am already dreading the ads, once the primary is over. As a country we are faced with many difficulties and many questions. The problems are complex and can not be answered with a simple fifteen second sound byte.

Perhaps that is the issue. In a complex and quickly changing world,some human beings want fast and simple answers. There is a sense that all of us long for a "simpler" time and place.

The problem is that "we" as a society and as a world can not go back. In those places where they work to control Internet access, people find ways to get information out and stay in contact. The world is becoming smaller and more accessible for good and bad.

As a person of faith, the challenge is not to ignore and to lament the changes, but to find a way to be faithful to the call of justice, mercy, peace and love. The "rhetoric" of faith is one of making real the God who has called to us for generations. In "simple terms" the call is for one to "do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God." (Micah 6:8) Or put in another way, "Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself, all the laws and prophets hang on these commandments." (Matthew 37-40)

These simple truths have never been simple, but have been the challenge for faithful people in every generation. If there is any "truth", people of faith are called to live in a way that gives witness to a different way of living. Not simple, but committed to bringing goodness, mercy, kindness, and justice to bear upon individual and societal considerations.

So today, I will go and vote and to the best of my ability, vote for those candidates who will work for the common good of all people. I will continue to look for ways to build bridges and to "do justice,love kindness and walk humbly with God."

Graced to Serve