Hello friends,
I’m writing this to you on Election Day and aiming to send it to you in forty-eight hours, when most (all?) races will have been announced and the midterms have passed.
Those of you who don’t know me well may not know that I work as an election official in my county. I began doing so in 2020 when Mecklenburg County lost a good percentage of its workforce because of Covid concerns. Most poll workers here are older folks, who understandably wanted to steer clear of such a public setting during a pandemic.
Working at the polls has been a surprisingly joyful experience. I wasn’t able to do so this year, but I plan to continue doing it. Seeing so many faces — some I knew, many I didn’t — and participating in this great unfinished symphony called the USA was a shot of joy for me.
There is no perfect earthly government, but I am thankful to live here, where local election officials decode the laws governing elections better than anyone I’ve seen on TV; where we yell out “FIRST TIME VOTER” when a new person comes in and everyone claps and cheers; where every precinct has a judge from each party, and they spend so much time together that they laugh and bring each other coffee; where the supplies and ziploc folders are all labeled and locked up for the next time; and we all hurry home to see what happened. It’s a nice balm after all the vitriol that tends to find its way into our homes in the weeks leading up to an election.
It’s a long, tiring day and a half, though. Election workers begin work the afternoon prior to the election. So I hope you were all nice to your poll workers. And if you’d like to know more about becoming a poll worker, I’d be happy to talk with you!
The Part Where There’s an Essay: Farmers and Fighters
(Note: this is not a political essay; it’s a cultural/churchy one. Second note: if my speaking in extended metaphors bothers you, you’d best come back next week.)
Last week Ron DeSantis’ campaign released the following ad:
There were some cries on Twitter that it was anything from glorious to dumb to heretical (ah, Twitter: always good for a hot take). If they had stopped screaming for a second, Tweeters might have recognized that it is a clear knockoff of the following Superbowl ad from a few years ago:
Since my grandfather was a dairy farmer, a lot of that second ad rang true for me when it aired. It still does. But the juxtaposition of the two ads made me consider the differences for a moment.
My grandfather was a good shot, and he handled a gun confidently. The second bedroom upstairs in their farmhouse was called the “gun room.” He reloaded his own buckshot and usually had a gun in the cab of his pickup. As a child, I didn’t think anything of the fact that there was always a small rifle leaning against the corner of the kitchen cabinets in my grandmother’s kitchen. It was always there; it was part of the furnishings of the room. You may think this is foolish, but the family culture was one of deep respect for weapons and the power that they wield.
Pop could have been a fighter if he wanted to. His own personal skill in handling guns coupled with the availability of opportunity meant that he could have been a bully. But his wielding of weapons was brought into submission to his ultimate purpose as a farmer: cultivation and harvest.
While there was definitely some sport hunting that went on, the family maintained their weapons largely to protect their farm. That gun in the kitchen was there in case there was a nighttime alert from their dogs that there was a fox or raccoon near the chicken house. The gun in the cab of the truck insured that coydogs near the herd of Holsteins could be scared off or dispatched.
The weapons were used in the same spirit as the fences: maintained, in good repair, and hopefully not tested too often. If the family had given their days to maintaining their gun collection and to target practice, they wouldn’t be very good farmers.
Instead, farmers give their days to cultivation. They plant, they weed, they tend, and they pray for rain and growth. They learn about the livestock they’ve been granted. They wait a lot: for a sunny spell; for a good soaking rain; for a heifer to deliver her calf; for the vet to give good or bad news. They might wish away the season, but at the end of the coffee break, they lace up their boots and get back to work.
My grandfather had such affection for his animals that every Christmas Eve, he gave the cows an extra scoop of grain and told the story again of the animals in the stable. It was a popular myth with farmers that in thanks for their hospitality to the Christ child, animals were granted the gift of speech at midnight on Christmas Eve. Funny how none of us were ever around to see it.
The animals and harvest at Deer View Farms flourished for decades because of the good gift of my grandfather’s fighting power, brought under control. He harnessed the authority of a fighting spirit and made it submit to the greater purpose: cultivating life. He protected when necessary, but he didn’t ride the fence lines looking for a fight. Instead, he gave his time to learning and loving the land and the livestock well.
I’m sure if you asked Mr. DeSantis, he would say that he “fights,” as the ad says, for the people of Florida. He engages at the fence lines because he cares about what’s inside the fence. The same would be said by pastors, “thought leaders,” and influencers of all types.
We can tell what kind of fight it is by observing: where does someone spend their time? Are they investing in the flourishing of their flocks, or are they neglecting the tending of the harvest for the glory and excitement of a fight? Are they inventing reasons to be combative? What do they talk about first and most often? Do they draw battle lines in every conversation — even imaginary battle lines?
It reminds me of the quote from Faramir, noble man of Gondor from Tolkien’s The Two Towers:
“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
Sometimes love and protection mean that we must engage a fight. But if fighting is all we ever do — if it becomes our purpose and first love — we’ve lost the plot.
For the Anglophiles
The big news in Premiere League this week is that Liverpool Football Club is for sale! My Boston Red Sox owner John Henry apparently doesn’t want to own a Premiere League team anymore.
Liverpool’s team anthem is the song from Carousel, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” and the fans’ eagerness to sing it is unparalleled. When fans were once again allowed back at Premiere League matches after Covid kept them away for 528 days, the Anfield rendition of the song brought a tear to my eye. Yes, even I, the robotic, heartless fan of Manchester City, can be moved by Liverpool fans.
Reads & Listens of the Week
I enjoyed this interview with Karen Swallow Prior on the Women and Work podcast from Southeastern Seminary.
If you need a laugh, please enjoy this episode of Dadville. The last seven minutes had me in stitches. Dave describes his wife’s inability to correctly express idioms and colloquialisms, resulting in such gems as “fishing for straws.”
The book We Go On by John Onwuchekwa has been a kind friend to me in recent days. It is a meditation on suffering based on the book of Ecclesiastes. The subtitle is “Finding Purpose in all of Life’s Sorrows and Joys.” It’s not my typical reading fare; it has glossy pages interspersed with black-and-white photography and bits of prayer here and there. But it turns out it’s been just what I needed this season.
Jonathan Leeman finally hopped in on the Christian Nationalism conversation. “In short, “Christian nationalism” misrepresents Jesus, and so we should reject it.”
“[Idoloatry] means turning a good thing into an ultimate thing.” - Tim Keller
This one made me a little teary. And “unfinished symphony!” Gets me every time.