Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Voting Day; An Extended Metaphor

The day started at 3 a.m. when our mutt Daisy was whining at the bedroom door to go out.  She had already pooped in the bedroom, so I picked that up with toilet paper and flushed it away before I could open the bedroom door and let her out.  Our old-lady cocker-spaniel went out with her.  Then I kenneled the dogs and went back to bed.

At 6 the day started in earnest.  Coffee, raisin bran, laundry, shaving my brother, getting my son to finish his Latin homework, and then out the door with my husband to vote.

We stood in line.  A woman who I recognized as someone who has lived in this neighborhood for decades, was told she had to wait to vote because there was a 1 digit typo in her address, a home of many years time.  We voted without incident.

As we walked to our car, we saw a neighbor entering to vote.  She's a public school teacher, a mother of a 4-month-old boy, Catholic, and she told us she was undecided.  Since she's been driving and walking past our yard, growing nothing but Republican yard signs in this drought, I'm certain she's voting for Obama.

At Latin class with my son, the moms were quietly optimistic.  We all had plans for extra rosaries, time in adoration, and watching the news.  We were doing our job.

At the grocery store I ran into an old friend I haven't seen in years.  We immediately started chatting.  We've both become estranged from our classmates over their views on a variety of things religious, political, educational and practical.  I kept stopping to hug her.  I've been thinking about her often lately.   I hope this will be the start of a strengthened friendship.  I will do what I can to make it so.

Once the groceries were put away, I was back in the car to head to our parish.  I admit it was hard to focus during my time in adoration.  I offered the Sorrowful Mysteries for our country.

We have become so comfortable in the U.S. that we expect it to never end.  It is going to end.  It will end no matter who our next president is.  It will end because we have become a decadent, debt-ridden, culture of death. 

The mood is somber in many voting booths.  We have large work ahead.  We can stretch it out to mitigate the pain, but I really hope we don't.  I hope our new leaders, state and federal, will choose bold moves.  We need boldness, brashness, attacking our culture with an energy in direct opposition to the uneasy sloth with which we slid into this pit.

We are going to have to pick up the poop, and flush it, before we can open the door.  We may be able to sleep a little more before we have to face the rest of the day, but we must face the day.  The work must be done.

P.S.  Obama has been re-elected.  Pastors in my city have said they will close schools rather than comply with the HHS mandate.  That is good.  Apparently the threat of real religious persecution wasn't enough.  We will have it in earnest.  May God protect us and preserve us.

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