I have a friend who was born in the then Belgian Congo. He now lives in Hampshire. He will be able to vote freely on May 7th. As will his children. Not so in the DRC. He is a reminder to me of why it matters so much to vote. We have the great good fortune, whichever party we support, whichever part of politics we come from, to be able to do that without fear in this country. In many parts of the world if we went to vote we might die, and in many places I, as a woman, would not have a vote.
Wasn’t the Richard Third re-interment moving? A peaceful end this year to a bloody period of our history. Archbishop Justin said recently that ‘an election is really the reconciled form of civil war. It is the way in which people take power without actually shooting each other. And so politics in general and the election in particular is something from which none of us should seek to escape.’
So: What kind of world do we want? What kind of world do we want in old age? What kind of world do we want for our grandchildren?
The first followers of Jesus were desperate for a different world. They believed Jesus would create it by force. Jesus had a different manifesto:
Love God. Love Our Neighbour. Love Our Enemies.
Three simple phrases for changing the world into the kind of world we would all be happy to inhabit.
So: three words as the election looms.
Think. Pray. Vote
And finally (yes finally) some words from the Bible:
“Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Blessings,
Janet
The Revd Janet Tebby
01664 474096