I will vote for Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv8eiDvrHJ4&feature=user

The McCain speech just happened and so it will not be up for a bit.
Compare and see which you like.


I will vote for Obama. The above video is one of many reasons.
Obama is a uniter.
McCain is a divider.
Maybe it is because I like that he plays basketball, but, in all the years that I have been able to vote ( since 1992), I am more interested in voting.

Maybe it is his charisma.
Maybe it is becauase Maya Angelou is on his side.
Maybe it is because he is perhaps the funniest politician I have ever known.
Maybe it is because he has a beautiful wife.
I do not know.
It certainly is not because I think he is going to "issue in world peace." No!!!
I think his campaign, as well as McCain's point to a deeper reality that exists in this county. It is the reality of isolation vrs. community!
Which do we want? Do we want isolation? Or, do we want community?

I think that for the first time in many years, possibly since my young years in the 80's, this country is ready to look fear in the face. We are ready to look racism in the face and say "yes." We are ready to come out from hiding.
I think we are ready for that.

The difference between the two candidates is this.




One is a hero.




One is a storyteller.



I want the storyteller as my preseident.
I do not want a hero as a president.
We need fewer hero's and more commoners.
Jesus was not a hero.
He was a common person. It ended up that he was killed for it.
It ended up that he is risen.
It ends up that everything is different now because of his resurrection.
But where is the evidence?
Sometimes we do not see much of that.
I think, in Obama, we see a touch, just a smidge, of that evidence.
I will always know McCain is a hero. But this does not mean he should be my president. He is not common enough to be a president.
I want the storyteller to help me understand my own story in light of the larger story of this land. I want the storyteller to give me courage not by telling his story, but by pointing to how our stories co-mingle.

Ultimately a hero leads lots of individual to be solitary hero's.
A storyteller ultimately leads to lots of individuals coming together to be a group.

Now I am blessed to have come from the upper middle class.
I also was cursed by this fact. I think that I am entitled to an education, a nice car, and a sturdy house. But this is simply not the fact for many Americans.


Jesus Christ was a community organizer.
Obama is a disciple of Jesus Christ, and because he worships Jesus Christ, I pray that his heart will seek the wisdom of the one person leading him.

This election choice is such a simple choice. Chose brotherhood, or chose exclusion. It is simple.
I want brotherhood, and I think that the creator, at bottom, we all know that we were created for community.

I mean, just look at the people in the crowd. It was (normal folks) Obama, verses the folks I hung out growing up with at Forsyth Country Club ( McCain).

To be honest, I want both, because I love both. But, in this case, I am feeling lots more like the common folks than the elites who go out and hit the driving range every day.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit."
"Blessed are the poor in spirit."


As an evangelical Christian, first, ( a member of the city of God) and a citizen of this country, second, (a member of the city of man) I am so very excited and privileged to vote for a man that has been humbled by his roots, and will continue to be humbled from whnce he has come.

As I final digression, I think it is important to notice that McCain, in his statement, "I was not my own man anymore, I was my countries," spells out his personal philosophy of nationalism. Nationalism is something that Christians must grow more and more weary of, for, after all, our primary allegiance is to the Prince of Peace. While McCain's service to America was immense and courageous, it is overstating it to say, "My country saved me." It sounds patriotic, but is patriotism the greatest value in our land? If it is, we will soon be conquered. If the earliest churches first concern was "themselves," never would a gentile have been converted, never would have Constantine converted, and never would the message of the gospel have reached 2.1 billion people.