response to "Letter from a Virginian to Obama"

blog readers:
what follows is a response to an email I got from one of my relatives as food for thought about the election. if you google "Letter from a Virginian to Obama" you will find the email I am responding to. it is too long to post here.
b

Disclaimer: Please forgive the imposition of my preaching and much more than my "two cents"; none of you asked for a response to this letter/email, but I couldn't help but write something, and if you'd like to read it, here it is. I'm also afraid to send this, knowing that I might be risking some hurt feelings over disagreeing about politics. That's not my intention at all. My intention is to throw another voice and opinion into the conversation that this entire country is having--and that includes opinions like mine and opinions like the Virginian. So, read on if you're interested in where I stand, but know that you might disagree with me (a lot), and that's totally okay. Our family is knit together with more than feelings or agreement--we are knit together by love, which is not just touchy-feely warm fuzzies but the deep strength and courage it takes to support each other, day in and day out.
With great love and respect,
Becca

I guess I'm "outing" myself to write this, and T., this is nothing against you personally at all, just a response to the letter itself: the letter makes me very angry. It gets to the heart of what I hate about politics--the nitpicking over facts and people that we will never be able to be sure of, and why should we rely on a random lawyer from VA? I am sure that an equally incisive and biting litany of offenses could be written about John McCain (not to mention Sarah Palin). We don't know anything about either candidate's character, and most likely never will--that kind of knowledge comes with knowing a person deeply and intimately for years--seeing them day in and day out. We can only guess at Obama's character, and drawing lines between "spinning the facts" and the depth and worth of a man's character is ridiculous given the context in which both candidates are working: the political sphere of America, which is incredibly cutthroat and malicious. All presidential candidates have to be smooth talkers to get to that level of power (what does that tell you about the nature of our political system?) and McCain most likely has been just as "deceitful". Also, I'm sure that none of us would be able to stand up beneath the immense scrutiny and pressure that would come up against us if we were in that powerful a position. We would say things we perhaps didn't mean, or leave things vague that we don't have time to explain, or heaven forbid we might change our minds. And to play the messiah-president card here as a response (as many people do) I think is foolish; we put a ridiculous standard to our president: that he or she must be equally perfect and equally "just like us". Presidents and presidential candidates are "just like us"--they are human beings, fallible and flawed. Are they better educated than most of the national population? Yes. Do they know the government and judicial systems better than most of the national population? I certainly hope so. Other than that, they are men and women, influenced by the same things that influence us: power, desires, fears, and hopes.

I do not want a "war hero" for my president. I do not want someone who is so blatantly rude to his opponent during the debates, someone who grabs at any negative hint of an insult to throw at his opponent. I do not want someone in office who thinks war is a good idea, whose policies may just increase the divide between the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich. I do not want a president who would vote against the right of women to have governance over their own bodies, or a president who would discriminate against homosexuals in their right to publicly confirm an already monogamous, loving, committed relationship. I do not want another old white man in the white house who cannot relate to the faces (and cultures, beliefs, wounds, hopes) that make up this country, faces and people who are as varied as the rainbow.

Lastly, the likening of Obama to Hitler is preposterous and offensive. There is nothing greedy or envious that is moving me to vote for Obama on Tuesday. I am moved to vote for Obama for several reasons, but the foremost being that he claims he will work to help the poor, to tax those who have the most, and give breaks to those who have next to nothing. One of the ways we can live out Jesus' command to feed the starving, clothe the naked, help the needy is by doing just that. Obama's willingness to dialogue with other nations' leaders, especially our enemies, is a radical move against the culture of fear that pervades our society. 'Love your enemies', Jesus said.
Jesus was not just a cool prophet whose words were a theoretical treatise. Jesus was an incarnation of the very depth of God's heart, and his words, if acted upon, could bring about the kingdom 'as it is in heaven' that we mumble-pray each week. Heaven is not just golden streets way up in the sky, a faraway place where 'one day' every wrong will be made right and there will be no more tears. It is that; one day wholeness will be restored and humanity redeemed. But it is also more than that. It is something that we have the power to realize on this earth. Part of that realization is living out Jesus' words in our own individual lives. And I do this the best I can, which means I fail, a lot. But I try. And if somehow we could agree on some policies that might attack poverty, racism, and oppression on a national scale, that would be remarkable. Working for 'the kingdom' is something done on a personal and corporate level. For the first time I am seeing a candidate who seems to understand and work toward that. Note that I say 'seems'; I am not an optimist by any means and am very well aware that I may be incredibly disappointed. The possibility for disappointment is great, regardless of the candidate.
But I am scared of what may take place if McCain and Palin are elected; I am afraid that their governing of this country will perpetuate and continue the spiral towards fear, insecurity, greed, and selfishness that this "great" country is already so good at embodying. I believe that the principles on which this country was founded are noble, and I believe that this country could be truly 'great'; but as we stand we are a nation that is a bully, a nation that claims to have wonderful opportunities open to everyone but in reality continues to oppress people of color, continues to discriminate according to class, gender, and sexual orientation, continues to selfishly assert and impose our way of doing things on other countries.

It is time for a change, a radical reordering of our personal and corporate actions, especially our actions towards those who have been and continue to be trampled on by those in power. Can Obama enact that change? Of course not, not by himself, anyway. But I believe he represents and issues a strong challenge to 'the way we've always done it', a challenge that is scary to us, bundled up in our fears and insecurities, but a challenge that we desperately need to hear, a challenge to which we desperately need to respond.

Rebecca Blake
a flawed yet impassioned seminary student

p.s. For some interesting views about politics in America, check out this blog by one of my professors and her colleague: http://princetonprofs.blogspot.com/