Leadership Crisis

Common Sense

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.” Euripides

We, here in America, are in the throes of mid-term congressional elections. The television networks are bloated with campaign money for negative ads, and the word 'mute' has been worn off the button on my remote. Meanwhile, we out here in the hinterlands, are driving on roads with potholes that can break your teeth, over bridges that creak ominously. No one takes responsibility for anything, and our beleaguered President is apparently the cause of everything from global warming, and Ebola, to those aforementioned potholes. I've now heard him called “the Anti-Christ” twice. It's appalling. No one seems to have a single concrete suggestion for how they might fix the mess we're in because all their air time is focused on criticizing one another and Obama. Whatever happened to common sense?

The most amazing thing is that this negative climate is universally hated. No one wants to hear it; certainly not the people who will vote. They want their representatives to reach across the aisle and get things done, but no one's listening. Representative government seems dead, or else has morphed into a zombie-like form that is terrorizing the populace.

The world has real problems, big problems. More and more it seems that big problems, if they're addressed at all, are the concern of private, non-profit entities rather than our elected leaders. Every Sunday in worship, we pray for calmer heads to lead us. We ask God to guide our leaders to care for the people who need their care. We will keep doing that even though it feels impotent. Let us all pray for peace and common sense—in our own lands, in our own time.

                                                      In the Spirit,

                                                            Jane