August 11, 2004
Foolishness
There’s an old Franciscan prayer that often comes to mind these days. It strikes me that we could take a page or two from it as we anticipate the big November election. It contains a veritable “platform” of expectations not only for ourselves and how we’ll make our choices, but also for the candidates and how they’d manage the big issues that face us all.
To hear it discussed and debated would be a welcome change from the commercials that just attempt to make one candidate look good at the expense of making another look bad. It might enable us get under the pettiness and show some real gratitude for this nation we’re called to govern.
The prayer asks God to bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts. It asks for anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace. In turn, it asks God to bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.
And then it concludes quite simply and realistically when it says, may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.
Would it be unrealistic to ask our candidates to consider such an approach to their aspirations to lead us and to us as we decide how to elect and follow them? Somehow, from what I’ve heard about our nation’s founders, I’ve a hunch they might think this a pretty good idea.