A Vote and/or A Prayer

When I am asked if I am a Democrat or a Republican, my standard answer is “I’m an American.”
At the ripe old age of 18, I registered to vote as an Independent. Coming from a family who, at that time at least, were strong Southern Democrats, that was quite a break. I felt then that I did not want to do something so important as voting to put a leader , local or national, in office based on a tunnel-vision affiliation with one groups ideals. I felt that my vote should be for the candidate, the person, that was the most qualified, honest, ethical, moral, principled, and of the most integrity. All these years of political sickness that has both Democrats and Republicans fighting  for the party instead of the Country, has only re-enforced my belief that I will not be shepherded into a vote. I can’t be part of the crowd when the crowd is going over a cliff.

It used to be said "Vote your conscience”. Is there a political conscience at all any more? Do we vote for our children’s and our  grandchildren’s sake? Do we vote for our Countrys’ sake? Do we vote for the Kingdoms sake? Are we still ‘One Nation Under God’ or a nation that has put God under? I believe that more good can be done by voting on our knees than voting for a person that in our hearts we feel is wrong.

I have no confidence in our government to consider the moral, ethical or spiritual welfare of our wonderful country any longer. We have the most corrupt body of people governing us since the founding of our great nation. “For the good of the people” has been replaced for the gain of the politicians. We have few folks in office, if any, whose main consideration is the citizenry and not the next election and their personal wallets.

The best and the brightest no longer lead us, the well-connected and shrewd do.

It is a sad, sad day when the very best this country can offer for a Presidential Candidate is well documented, proven crooked, chronic liars and law breakers. A prayer lifted to Heaven is all you hope to do to find comfort in this coming election. To pray that God takes the reigns, and turns the hands and minds of those in office to protect our dear nation and steer it back to the God fearing country it was founded to be. I cannot in good conscience vote for the pathetic offerings from any of the parties today. Am I saying we shouldn’t vote at all ? No, I’m just saying I’m saddened and disheartened  by the lack of anyone I CAN vote for. And, personally, if I vote my conscience… I can’t vote at all.

Ronald Reagan was asked, after leaving the Democratic party to join the Republican party, if he was now a Republican for life. He stated “No… I am a conservative for life.”  He went on to add that whichever party Democrat, Republican, or otherwise, served a Christian conservative purpose, that is where he would cast his vote. I wholeheartedly concur. But, where is such a party in America today?

This year our voting choices are to vote for one candidate to only make sure the other candidate loses. So who wins? The politicians do. Who loses? All of us do. An election is won and a country feels lost.

I intend to vote on my knees.

Why? There Is No Answer...Again

 NOTE : AFTER THE RECENT SCHOOL MASS MURDER EVENT, I WAS REMINDED OF THIS POST I PRESENTED IN DECEMBER 2012. HERE IT IS:


WHY? Over the next few days, weeks, and months much will be said about the heart breaking and mind numbing event at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut . Focus and energy that should be placed on the broken lives of the parents, grandparents and siblings will soon be shifted to blame placing and, unfortunately, political rhetoric. Much will be speculated, some things will be confirmed, positions will be entrenched, and....there will be plenty of finger pointing.
 
Some will argue anew for the removal of all guns from American soil, in the naïve notion that that could ever be accomplished in a day of a world wide economy, where one phone call gets an entire shipment of deadly weapons delivered from overseas in a week. Some will cry for stricter laws, in absentminded blindness to the fact that, assault with a deadly weapon and cold blooded murder are already against the law, and that one deranged human being broke those laws, over and over and over again, in a blood letting rage, until 26 adults and children were dead.  The Law means nothing to a person prepared to break it.
 
Others will argue that we often arm guards in shopping malls to protect retailers and customers, but don’t have universal protection for our most vulnerable and precious resource in public schools. Our future is our children after all.  Many will cry that if there had been no guns on the street, this wouldn’t have happened. Still others will shout that if some adult in that school had had a weapon, and knew how to use it, maybe some of those victims could have been spared.

Some will say it is Gods will or he would have stopped it. Many will argue that God could never will the slaughter of innocent children, that mans inhumanity to man comes from the will of Satan and a persons lack of concern for Gods will. 

Few would argue that there are two things increasingly absent from both families and schools; discipline...and God. As a society we increasingly (and wrongfully) expect schools to rear our children, and yet we have fettered the hands of teachers when it comes to discipline. Many parents are lazier than ever when it comes to raising their children. We have legislated God out of our schools yet have the audacity to ask where he was during a tragedy. What about honest family structure at home?

 Letting kids grow up is easy; raising children, however, is hard work. It takes great effort to nurture children, but the reward is worth it. Some say that having each parent working makes it too difficult to spend the time they need with their children. Others say that people always have the time to do what they really want to do most. Its not always about time... sometimes it's about priorities.
 
The frustration, positioning, and rankling, and the psychoanalyzing and theorizing, all come down to one thing. None of us have the ability to wrap our minds around the reality that a person would murder beautiful, fragile, innocent children, or that children would murder each other. And yet, sadly, in the name of war, it happens routinely in other parts of the world. But it should not happen here…this is America.
 
No, the truth is, all these debates are just pent up grief, anger, and frustration due to our total lack of ability to answer the question on all of our minds. Why, for Gods sake…why? And that answer has alluded us since Cain killed his own brother Able, thousands and thousands of years ago.

There has always been, and always will be, an element of society that will be injurious to the other. The only thing that we can do about it is protect ourselves, and learn better how to bend our knees, fold our hands.... and pray.
  All we can do is try to protect ourselves, our children…and pray for guidance. God help  us all.