On the eve of election night

I'm reminded of the famous admonition from the writer of II Chronicles 7:14: If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Right now, that's my prayer.  I don't so easily discard America and its history to the trash heap  since I know full well it won't be me who pays the price, but my children and their children.  If I want to be courageous about my scorn and contempt for the American experiment  I can simply pack up, move to a place like Saudi Arabia, and openly proclaim the Gospel.  

As it is, as flawed as things are, I'll bet that tomorrow, no matter how convoluted, things will go off relatively peacefully   Maybe not.  Maybe we've already sunk to the level of riots and calls for violence if our guy doesn't win.  But if so, the side that calls for such will reveal itself for what it is - a revolutionary movement that doesn't seek to liberate, but rather seeks to subjugate. 

For my part, I've never been so unenthusiastic about casting a vote in my life.  Since I was 18, I've proudly voted.  From those years I toyed with going into politics, through every election save one, I've looked forward to going in to exercise that right that so many in the world yearn for, and so many in our past died to maintain.  

But this year, I couldn't possibly be less enthused. Locally it's a different story, and there are issues and local races that I feel strongly about, and more invested in the outcomes.  But the presidency?  I'm at a loss to think of a more inept, inconsequential, and ineffective president in recent memory than Barack Obama.  I mean, aside from ramrodding his healthcare overhaul through with all the tactics common to a Chicago stereotype, just what has he done?  Certainly not heal the land, and certainly not improve things.  If anything, his approach has been to max out as many credit cards as possible, with the whispered promise that if he is reelected, then we'll really see what he's up to.  That so many around the world who don't have our best interests in mind want Obama reelected says enough.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, has been perhaps my least favorite candidate of all time.  If he only stood for things, then I could see voting with some measure of enthusiasm.  At this point, if he stood up and proclaimed that he willingly and joyfully advocated a list of intrinsic evils, I would vote with gladness, knowing what I would get.  As it is, I don't think anyone in America can tell just where Romney stands on a variety of key issues.  As far as I can tell, his main purpose in life has been to make money, and gobs of it.  Everything else, if he's given any thought at all to, has been minimal. 

And that's what we're left with.  In the end, I'll probably vote for Mitt Romney.  Why?  Because it's against my nature to stand in the bleachers, do nothing, and then complain about the team on the field.  It isn't to support Romney's more dubious positions.  But it is to attempt to halt the juggernaut that has risen against religion in general, and Christianity in particular, over the last few years.  The thing that bothered me about the HHS mandate wasn't Obama's belief that it was the right thing to do, nor was it those who insisted it wasn't a threat to religious liberty.  I think it is a threat, but I understand where folks might disagree.

No, what bothered me was the initial reaction to the Bishops' opposition to the mandate, when many across the landscape reacted by saying, more or less, 'screw you Catholics, we hate you and your Church, and damn well hope it restricts your freedoms!'  Sure, it died down after a while, but I remember the first days, when not a few on the Left, or the Secular side of the media culture, were happy to give a middle finger to those who failed to be liberal. 

This was not isolated either.  We all saw the Chick fil A debacle  when elected officials attempted to use their government offices to banish the company of an American citizen simply because that individual voiced a non-liberal viewpoint about homosexuality.  Again, after a few days, many came out and criticized the move by these elected officials, but in the early days, there were plenty yelling for more censorship, more oppression of those who dare to not be liberal.

And it is this flagrant movement of oppression and tyranny that has found a friend in Obama, and a willing accomplice in the modern propaganda ministry, that must be slowed.  I doubt it will be stopped.  But for the sake of my children, I cannot see another four years being anything other than a march toward oppression and the eradication of the right to not be liberal if this movement's chief proponent, who now occupies the White House, has anything to do with it.  So as much as I am reluctant to do so, I'll more than likely pull a lever for Romney tomorrow, and hope through some miraculous turn of events, the better part of his family and the goodness he must have to bear with the struggles of his wife and loving children, will emerge.  It will emerge against the more wicked turns of the traditionalists in America in recent years, and will attempt to find that Face of God that we are called to seek, and help allay that force emerging in those realms that are peopled with those who would strike down the freedoms once enjoyed by Americans, and that our children should have a right to enjoy. 

Sorry about the rambling nature of the post, but it was off the top and what I'm really feeling, and I didn't want edits to diminish or add to what was on my mind.  God bless the USA tomorrow, and in the months and  years to come.