An acquaintance of mine found himself in a position to work closely with both President Obama and President Trump (and their families). I once asked him what differences he observed when serving the two administrations. Was one family nicer than the other? Was one family easier to work with than the other? Was one good and the other evil?
As anyone working with presidential families should be, he was tight-lipped. But after a long pause, he finally said, “Mark, here’s the thing: all of these people are monsters. They are all monsters.”
I’ve thought about his words a lot lately. They conflict with the dramatic, polarizing narratives we’re force-fed by the media. We are assured that one side is aligned with God, embodies righteousness, and will be the salvation of America. The other side, we are told, is the distillation of pure evil, is the AntiChrist, and serves as the herald of the End Times.
I suspect the truth is much simpler — much closer, in fact, to a story based on one told by Canadian politician Tommy Douglas in 1944. All of us everyday folks are mice. All politicians are cats. By keeping the mice fighting over whether to elect a white cat or a black one, the cats keep the mice from seeing the truth: whatever the outcome of the election, a ravenous mouse-eating cat always wins.
In a church I once attended, we had a member who appointed himself the chief of what I jokingly call “The Church Police.” If he suspected our tee-totaling members might secretly sipping alcohol, he would burst into their homes and check the cabinets. He told members who smoked in this life that they “would surely smoke in the next.” He once told a divorced man who had started over with a sweet new wife that he better enjoy sex with “his whore” while he could because, in hell, “you’ll be sodomized by demons for all eternity.”
He was also, more than anyone I’ve ever known, eager for what we called the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord. He craved The Rapture. He longed to see Jesus returning in all His glory, and he prayed fervently for the End of Days.
This was not so much because he was eager to see Jesus. Rather, he could not wait to see himself lifted up and see his sinful neighbors cast into a fiery hell. I remember very clearly the day he told me, “I want to see their faces when they realize I was always right. I want to watch them falling into The Abyss and to tell them, ‘I told you so.'”
As it turned out, the righteous Chief of our Church Police was also carrying on a years-long affair with his secretary. When this came out, instead of repenting, he left his wife of more than 25 years, married the secretary, and left to form his own church.
For many people, the upcoming election s is a one-issue election. One candidate (occasionally) supports a law to end abortion in America; the other asserts those decisions belong with women and their doctors. For many people, this seems to be all the information needed to make a choice.
Others tell me that they are more concerned with the label the candidate wears. They have always voted Republican or Democrat, they say … and nothing either candidate says or does will change their party allegiance.
To me, both of these mindsets amount to choosing President Cat based on nothing more than the color of his or her coat. I understand the appeal of this black or white, good or bad, left or right kind of thinking. It’s easy. It’s simple. It protects us from having to wrestle with deeply complicated political, economic, and moral facts of life.
It’s easier for us to pick a white cat or a black cat than to deal with life’s messy shades of grey.
I used to work for a seminary where the Dean of Education called me to his office and told me, “Mr. McElroy, we are not here to teach young minds how to think. We are here to teach them what to think.”
With the election pending, we certainly have no shortage of religious leaders who want to tell us what to think. One candidate, they tell us, is appointed by God. The other, they warn, is a servant of Satan. One candidate, a seller of Bibles, says his favorite book is “Two Corinthians.” (Sigh.) The other, we’re assured, is a “whore” controlled by pimps, or is a Black Witch, or a voodoo queen.
Before you cast a vote based strictly on what religious experts tell you, you might want to remember the cautionary tale of the Church Police.
There are people in the world who understand that the fastest way to control others and empower themselves is to co-opt the power of God for themselves and their side. And, in my experience, all too many of these — the gentleman I knew, and virtually every fierce, angry, mean-spirited religious person I’ve ever met — are also using their self-righteousness and bluster to keep you from seeing their own feet of clay.
They hate others, and preach hate for others, because, deep down, they hate themselves. Obsessing on what’s going on in our lives keeps them from having to deal honestly with what’s going wrong in their own.
Why am I writing this?
Here’s why: a week or two ago, a sweet, kind woman I met years ago told me, with all honestly, that she just didn’t know who to vote for. Her church tells her one thing. The newspaper tells her another. Fox News tells her one story; CNN tells her another. Her Facebook friends assure her there is only one way for people like her to vote … but, because she loves all kinds of people, her heart remains divided.
Here’s all I can tell her.
When I cast my vote this year, I didn’t give a mousie’s patootie what color cat I voted for. I didn’t care what color cats I had voted for in years past. And I don’t care at all what color cats the mice at my church, in my neighborhood, or on Facebook choose, either.
When I cast my vote this year, based on previous experiences with people who seize religious power as a way to gain control over others, I didn’t pay any attention at all to claims that God favors one candidate over the other. Both candidates, like all of us, have a role to play in the Divine Plan, but the God of the Universe is far too vast to be claimed by any political party.
What did influence my vote?
I believe in the power of compassion, so I voted for the candidate I felt most capable of compassion. I believe in Truth, so I voted for the candidate that I felt lies less often. I believe that life is richer when many different people’s voices are heard, so I voted for the candidate I felt most likely to listen to different points of view. I believe in protecting children, so I voted for the candidate who seemed most likely to put programs in place that would help real children be fed, be educated, and find a way out of poverty.
I believe that all people are valued by God, so I voted for the candidate who seemed less likely to discount the humanity of any of God’s children. I believe our relationship with God (and even the decision not to have a relationship with God) is a deeply personal matter, so I voted for the candidate I felt would stand up for each person’s freedom to choose (or refuse to choose) a religion of their own.
I believe the best decision I’ve ever made, the source of so much that is good and right in my life, is my marriage to Clyde, so I voted for the candidate I felt most likely to uphold the basic human right to love who we love.
I believe in the lessons of history, so I voted for the candidate who has never expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler, who never voices admiration for oppressors and dictators, and whose closest associates have never called unstable or unfit for office. I believe in the perils of the present, so I voted for the candidate who embraces science and admits our planet is in trouble. And I believe in having hope for the future, so I voted for the candidate who seems most likely to offer the kids around me the best possible chance for a world that can support their dreams.
I believe in the dream that is America, so I voted for the candidate who has never called America “a garbage can for the world.” I believe democracy is the best political system ever devised, so I voted for the candidate who has never encouraged followers to riot, never defended people who carried Nazi and Confederate flags into the Capitol building, and never claims the vote has been rigged.
And, though you may doubt it, I believe in your right to disagree with me and have opinions and passionate stances of your own … and so I voted for the candidate I thought most likely to tolerate a range of approaches and value systems, including both mine and yours, even though they may differ wildly.
If my sweet friend reads this, I hope it encourages her to see past the divisive stories we’re all being fed. I hope she will be suspicious of those who wrap themselves in the flag or claim the cross as their own. I hope her faith in God will help her see that because God is already in control, God has no need of a political party to give Him control.
I hope she will forgive me for not speaking out sooner, for not saying more, for being so afraid to cause offense or face controversy that I held my tongue, even when I should have spoken out.
I hope this message finds her — and you — in time to make some very small difference in what I think might be the biggest decision any of us has ever made.
