I am one of those cooks who saves leftover chicken carcasses until the freezer runs out of room. Then I take all the frozen chicken parts and frozen drippings from the roasting pan, throw them in a huge pot with some water and boil them until the meat is falling off the bones. I cool the stock, skim the fat off, put it in freezer containers, and store it in the freezer. When the chicken parts have cooled enough to be handled, I separate the meat from the bones, gristle, skin, and ooky stuff and divide it up between several smaller containers to be used later for soup.
That was my morning task today and while separating the meat from the bones I was struck by a thought: we the American people are desperate for a savior. We want someone who will promise us that life can be different under a different ruler. We are drawn to someone whose vision is different from the visions being thrown up by other prophets.
While I was working on the chicken, I thought of the old movie "Shane" and how Shane came to the rescue of the beleaguered people and then rode off into the sunset. I thought of all the heroes of fiction, the super-heroes and the not-so-super; I thought of Moses and John the Baptist and Jesus and the Kennedys and Martin and Malcolm. And I thought, "what makes this different?"
And then Jess's comment popped into my head: "Yes, we can", she said in response to my plea for the hope of the young to come strengthen me. And it's the "we" part that gives me strength.
The "we" implies something other than a ruler. The "we" implies that we all have a part in this metamorphosis, if we will just take it, if we will just find the strength inside to participate in what democracy really means. The "we" means that we don't just work for our candidate to win, we work for a better life for all people, not just the Democrats or Greens or Republicans. The savior's kingdom is not an earthly kingdom, to use Jesus' words; it is inside every heart and mind. It is our transformed life as a people and as individuals.
There, maybe I'm getting it now. Maybe I'm still scared but I want to help bring about a new kindom on earth.
4 comments:
Exactly. Obama is about getting the people involved again in their own dreams and to take responsibility for their own destinies. And it's working.
Kit, I wonder whether your "kindom" in your last sentence is really a misprint. Perhaps somewhere in the back of your head is the knowledge that "Blessed is the meek" is at least as likely to be translated "blessed are the gentle", in terms of the Greek text. Otherwise, the kingdom idea
worries me, although it has a certain realism.
LF, "kindom" is what I meant, a realm of kinfolks, people working together to bring about the dream. It looks like a typo; it's not.
wow-- our speaker today used that exact word: kindom.
Or in Obama's words: "I'm asking you to believe--not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington... I'm asking you to believe in yours."
Amen.
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