...and thank God for it. I'm ready to move on with our lives here in the States and hopefully start to see change in the many issues brought to the foreground during the election process.

With the election in 2 days, I wanted to share some thoughts from a great article by Shane Claiborne on the God Politics blog. You should read the whole thing, but here are some good insights and questions for you:

• Jesus was far too slick to get boxed into any political camp.
• One of the ways the Religious Right went wrong was telling folks what to do rather than stirring people to think for themselves.
• The decision we make on November 4 is an important one — perhaps no more important than how we live on November 3 and November 5 — but important nonetheless.
• As a follower of the enemy-loving God, it is difficult to vote for a commander in chief of the largest military in the world, especially when no candidate seems to be preaching “blessed are the peacemakers” or creating a plan for turning swords into plows.
• No candidate or party fully embodies the values of God’s upside-down kingdom.
• Perhaps a good answer when folks ask if you are a Republican or Democrat is: “On what issue?”
• One way for people of so-called “privilege” to act in solidarity with the poor and marginalized is to ask folks in poverty who we should vote for. Another experiment for white folks in this election might be asking people of color who have suffered so much historically whether we should vote or who we should vote for — and to honor their struggle by submitting our voices with theirs.
  
• One way to look at voting is that it is damage control -– not so much voting for something as it is voting against something worse.