Becoming more contemplative as I age (even me, impatient ActionNow child of the '60's), I am concerned over what I see in my country today. Those with great talents flow toward excessively lucrative careers in finance and technology rather than professions giving service to fellow humans. Politics seems to draw the opportunists, unaware that theirs is a position of trust in a democracy, and that their job is to govern us well. Their charge is to draw us together through inspiring words and to enable the machinery that benefits us all to work well: roads, schools, orderly immigration.
As a Presbyterian Christian, I deplore the way our Presidential candidates are treating one another, failing to recognize their opponents not just as flawed but also as made in the image of God and deserving of respect. The end does not justify the means. Winning at all costs is losing. Process matters.
Many of our people are immensely frustrated by being unable to find work, or even if working, unable to afford housing or food. Outside our nation exists groups dedicated to our destruction.
Let us pool our energies to solve these problems using the precious tools of democracy and not use the democratic process to pit us against one other and risk losing our democracy to chaos or authoritarian rule.
