Thank God the election's Over--the challenge of working together begins

   I'm like a lot of you.  I'm glad it's over.  I don't know how many more of the nasty election ads I could have handled.  I know that elections is to end up with winners and losers.  I don't imagine anyone is completely satisfied with yesterday's results.  But elections do have consequences in a democracy and I guess we will all have to watch those consequences unfold for good and for ill.

    Here's what I was thinking though today.  The election is over but the hard work of being a United States or a United nation has really just begun.  There are real problems and I have to believe that there are more reasonable ways to address those problems than what how we've been trying to meet or avoid them up to this point.

   Actually, this is what I thought today.  I thought how glad I am that Jesus died for me.  And then I thought how sad I am that Jesus died because of me.  It was my sin, my brokenness, my willful rebellion that required his sacrifice.  And I realized that moving forward as a citizen of this country--as well as a citizen of God's Kingdom--that I am a beneficiary of all the good things that go along with being a part of this great country.  I am blessed beyond measure as a child of God.  But I am also responsible for the mess we find ourselves in.  It's not a Republican fault or a Democratic fault--it's a human fault and we all share it.  Tony Campolo once said something to the effect that there is no Us and They.  There is no Me and Them.  There is just a line running down the center of who I am reflecting the bad and the good.  I am gentle and I am harsh.  I am kind and I am self-centered.  I am the best and the worst of what God intends me to be.

   I'm just thinking it is time for us to own up to our complicity in the problems that we face as a people.  It is time to put love ahead of blame and dismissiveness.  We've got a lot of hard work to do and I hope that as followers of Jesus we can show the world what real compromise and cooperation looks like.  Maybe it's at times like these that we have a chance to let that infamous light shine in ways that might not have ever been apparent to Jesus in his day and time.

   I offer the following prayer as a model for moving forward after a bitter, divisive and decidedly ruthless political season.  I think of it as the Prayer of 'Get Over Yourself'.  Policy and economics, taxes and entitlements, rights and responsibilities aren't some kind of football game in which everybody lines up on one side of the field or the other.  It's about people's lives.  It's about living together in close proximity.  It's about duty, integrity, and compassion.  So why don't we let it go and get over ourselves as soon as we possibly can.  This prayer has helped  me in that direction.  It's one of my favorites and I think it works pretty well under the circumstances.  It's attributed to St. Ignatius of Loyola.

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve; 
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.