I’m just an observer and this really isn’t about the the election. If you let people talk long enough they tell on themselves. If you watch anything long enough you see all the parallels between them. I would ask anyone watching or participating in any public discourse or politics in the past year to ask first what makes sense. From what I can see, nothing does. I’m not supporting Trump, but I also can say truthfully that I’ve watched speeches, and then seen those same speeches chopped up in the media. On still another hand, he doesn’t need the media to help him incite or anger people. He is quite smart on how to do it himself. The Bernie supporters love to talk about love and how he is the candidate for love. On and on it goes…but when Bernie himself makes excuses and claims “he cant be responsible for the actions of his supporters” (you know when they have their own rallies and become violent in their reactions) he gets a free pass…because tolerance. Both Sanders and Trump have their share of violent and obsessive supporters, the same can’t be said for Clinton; she doesn’t need violent support she has her own record of violence and support of violence. She also has old hat feminist like Steinem and Albright, who recently stated that “there was a special place in hell for women who didn’t support other women”. These same women never ever support conservative or independent voting women who come under attack. Yay for tolerance. When we step back and look at this chaos and take our emotions out of it we can see that it needs our full attention and participation to run. Whether it is our anger or our support. Whether it is our social media likes and shares, or our tears of redemption when we feel acknowledged. Whether it is our full belief in the demonization of one side or our full belief in the saving love of the other, it takes our full attention with its distracting noise. It as distracting and entertaining and time consuming as any football game or “dropped album by Bey”.

      In 2016 we are having a hard time with what is a man and what is a woman, what is straight man who identifies as a straight woman and what is straight woman who identifies as a gay male…or something. We want to remake society for these questions and ignore that Russia is buzzing our own bases, Syrian hospitals are being bombed and fifty people including the last pediatrician are killed, there are three nuclear plants leaking on our own soil , there are family detention centers aka prisons and little children who probably cant speak English stand before courts without representation, while we stand quietly and judge or ignore. Jews are fleeing the UK because they don’t feel physically safe-all while in our universities we demand “Safe spaces” for our feelings and dis-inivite or shutdown dialogues we don’t agree with, and get on violent BDS trends. Because tolerance.

          I was thinking about all this and how passionate and emotionally high this election cycle has been. People are voting feelings. No matter what the media portrays, I can assure you that the Trump supporters I know are not “rich white racist”. The Sanders supporters I know are not “a bunch of communist”. In fact I’ve been surprised at who I have found to support him. What all of them have in common is a belief that their candidate will change the status quo. Getting down to the dirt of what those running actually speak with their mouths and ideas, it is very crystal clear, that no they will not nor can they change the system. In fact much of what they propose will not change the system because what they propose is already a huge part of the system.  In 2014, a good friend of mine told me “we can’t fight them, but they want us to think we can. The US is prepped. Protect your mind”.  Since I lost him, all I see around me is evidence that he was right. Though he would argue with my worldview, and had nothing for my religion, I know he was right and we agreed that there was a predatory system on this planet.

     None of these people are the devil nor Jesus, but I will say that as a Christian I have kind of been sickened at how Christians have rallied behind Trump..and then the ones who have also rallied behind Sanders. No, people of the internet, the tribal ways in which the ancient Jews and Christians lived was not socialist. It was not communist, heck these were not even words back then. These were tribal communities and they lived as such-and they were in hiding or in struggles with the governments much of the time. We need to think about that.Because we are all guilty of trying to play a system that is not God’s system. It is the worlds system and it has played us and it is still doing it. Every time a politician plays to the evangelical vote, or pretends to care about the Christians being killed somewhere else, or panders to Pat Robertson, we respond like Pavlovs dogs. On the other side they do it with abortion rights and name calling religious people extremists and hatemongers. Well, we are all guilty of falling for that experiment I guess. But to my fellow Christians, please understand that from where I sit, there is no difference among any of them and we are headed for a dark place. If any of us thought any candidate would keep up from going there we were sorely wrong.

It is time to remember who we are, and stop playing the worlds game. We need to pray-not “Against” this or that, but pray for our souls, pray for each other and seek God on what to do and how or who we can help in the coming days. I guarantee you that no matter who is in office, more people will need help than ever before and it will be up to the creative gifts bestowed on us, to be His hands and feet. We must pray for wisdom on how to speak and react, because the powers that be are watching and waiting for any opportunity to accuse us and silence us or use us as pawns to enact some new bill up their sleeve. Wherever you go to pray, go there. That is what God is waiting on, He can deal with the rest, He isn’t even concerned about it. I assure you that He is concerned with how His children are worrying and playing in it.The seeds we have sown in the past have fully grown and are coming for us, let us stop perpetuating the growth, repent for our part in it and move forward, not worrying about this evil system but being about truth.

“Keep your mind clear, and be alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion as he looks for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

“Do not call conspiracy everything this people calls a conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it.” Isaiah 8:12