So I Voted

So I have my “I voted” sticker. I did not go to Starbucks, or Krispy Kreme, or Ben and Jerry’s, however, to celebrate my freedom of franchise, nor to cash in on my patriotism as I have sadly heard some joke. I left the voting booth in deep thought and needed to discuss those thoughts with my keyboard.

I entered the voting booth with my prepared list of yes’s and no’s for the 12 California propositions. I had decided to make a write-in vote for President, but passed on that part of the ballot and voted for local offices with surety. I made it through all the propositions because of my previous preparation in less than a minute. My previous study on the presidential race had left me in a quandary. There are things about both candidates that I greatly respect. There are things about both I don’t like. And then, there are the policies each represents or proposes. Again there are things I like and things I simply and adamantly disagree with. I never understood how a person could “throw their vote away” in voting for a candidate that had no chance to win. I thought I had overcome that feeling and had decided that if the perfect candidate existed for me, I decided I would vote for him or her even if I was the only vote that person got. Then I looked at my ballot and had second thoughts...

For a fleeting moment I had thoughts of leaving my vote for President blank. The words “Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote,” came to mind. I do believe Eisenhower’s words that “The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.” So I voted.

And, I will support whoever is elected as the chief executive of this country. I remember the statement by another President, Kennedy, that said, “There is no city in the United States in which I can get a warmer welcome and fewer votes than Columbia, Ohio.” I say hurray for Columbus, Ohio for being big enough to support the President, and enough of trying to get things done in this day by pointing out the faults of the other person and party, or automatically dismissing something because the other party thought of it first. Are we Americans first, or party members first?

I know few people more interested, informed, and capable of understanding the complexities of national and global conduct than my mother. Last night we had a discussion about Presidential elections. We both agreed that it was a national embarrassment and a terrible waste of money to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on campaigns. That money could do so much good in so many ways. I mentioned that I was glad and even excited about the election finally being here. Even with my struggles with candidates and policies, I am an optimist and no matter who is elected I believe this country is bigger than one person (even if that person is the President) and as long as the country has our support, that person will do fine. My mom on the other hand feels like she has been burned too many times. The last time she really believed in the candidate was Goldwater. I don’t know whether that means Goldwater was the last good candidate or that from that time on she was no longer living under the influence of her staunch Republican father (party first person second), or her naiveté was lost. I saw this somewhere and had to search for it this morning because it seemed to sum up my mother’s feelings: An unsolicited email arrived which said thanks to those who had voted for Clinton-Gore and among other things: Thanks for making Jimmy Carter look competent, Gerald Ford look graceful, Richard Nixon look honest, Lyndon Johnson look truthful and John Kennedy look moral. So whoever is elected, they owe it to the citizens of this great country like my mom to not jade their outlook on the US political process. A lot of promises have been made that simply can’t be fulfilled. On the other hand, the new President needs to be meek and teachable, yet strong and true to the principles which allowed him to seek and eventually accept the responsibilities of office.

In my last blog I offered up some thoughts about the book, Raintree County. I now take a quote from that book (pp. 44-45): In the year 1826, the Scotch philanthropist Robert Owen founded New Harmony on the Wabash River in southern Indiana. Down the Ohio and up the Wabash came a Boatload of Knowledge÷scientists, artists, and educators imported from the East and from overseas to found a New Moral World in the western wilderness. People were invited to come and join a paradise regained by innate human goodness. The noble experiment lasted two years and collapsed in the usual picturesque wreckage of innate human selfishness and inefficiency. But many gifted people remained and fostered an interest in science and art so much advanced for the place and the period that New Harmony came to be known as the Athens of the West. Among the New Harmonians were students of natural science, and it was one of these who brought to New Harmony the seeds of an exotic tree, which he planted by the gate of his house. Make your own metaphors, but the book itself could be a passionate search of Raintree County—this American experiment, for the raintree—the principles of this great country—the seed of what makes us unique, and teachable, but strong and unwavering.

In an early dream sequence, the tragic protagonist, Shawnessy finds a map of the county, “He was certain that in the pattern of its lines and letters this map contained the answer to the old conundrum of his life in Raintree county. It was all warm and glowing with the secret he had sought for half a century. The words inscribed on the deep paper were dawnwords, each one disclosing the origin and essence of the thing named. But as he sought to read them, they dissolved into the substance of the map.”

As I held the ballot in my hands today, I felt a little bit like Shawnessy in his dream. I wanted to see the answer, but like the Shawnessy hero of Raintree County seeking for his Golden Bough, any certain answer dissolved away. But action in the midst of uncertainty is at least party what faith is all about—so I voted.

As I left the polling place I held the door open for an older gentleman with a patriotic T-shirt on. A member of the “Greatest Generation,” he walked with a cane and stooped shoulders. But behind his aged eyes was a determined stare and he had a smile on his face. He lifted my spirits and confirmed in my heart that I had done the right thing. I have no idea who he would vote for or how he would vote on the issues. It didn’t matter whether I would agree with him or not. He had come to vote again and I had just voted. As I walked to my car I understood anew the scripture in Revelations 3:16: "So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." I would not let myself become lukewarm, but rather continue to try to fulfill the requirements laid out in Isaiah 61: 1-3, that I might become my own tree of righteousness.

With editing on my part the words of William F. Buckley (my edits in bold): I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to industry and commerce, not to the natural man or worse. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth. That is the lure of the Zeitgeist, is it not? It is certainly threat enough for me to keep my conservative side compassionate and teachable, and my liberal side infused with Christian spirituality and a healthy does of individualism. And I pray, the nation free.