“Can you really have thought that love and joy would always be at the mercy of frowns and sighs?  Did you not know they were stronger than their opposites?”  C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.

For about two months I have gone back and forth about saying something as your pastor about the upcoming presidential election.  On one hand, I wanted to buck the movement that suggests that because the church has a tax-exempt status it ought to not comment on politics (whether the church has that status in a culture or not, it’s certainly not defined by that).  And on the other, I have found the political theater of the past eighteen months so sticky.  We are currently re-visioning what American politics actually consists of with the heightened level of destructive rhetoric we are seeing.

But I have decided at last to put some thoughts down.  Here they are. 

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Never prior in my life has enduring a difficult season felt more absurd than it does to me now.  Forces in my culture invite me, like siren songs, to reprieves that essentially amount to abdication and not to rest or delight.  Everything invites me to “escape”, “take a break” or “take care of myself”, even when that would amount to departing my station in life.

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I have been encouraged in my times with many of you recently to see how you are fighting against despair and its effects.  I thought I’d offer just a reminder of how evil uses despair as a tool in our world.

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“Let your love be genuine”, says Paul to the church of Rome (Romans 12:9).  But is that possible?  What we call “love” is often forced or indulged, rather than emerging from the overflow of spiritual life in Christ.  Is this a possiblity for us today?We’re conducting an experiment to see if it’s possible.  Details of the procedure can be found here.   

In these trying times, I thought it might be an encouragment to hear a voice from the past.  Writing about the crises facing the earth in post-World War II-era, Frank Laubach called the world to prayer and action to pursue peace.  Hear some of his words from his 1946 publication, “Prayer in an Atomic Age”.  You may note not only how much times have changed but also how much they have stayed the same… 

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