Manson's Memo - Have you voted?

Have you voted yet?

I've already voted. I've voted so regularly by absentee ballot that they now have me on the permanent absentee list. It gives me a certain pleasure when they start calling about candidates and propositions that I can tell them they are too late.

How do you think about voting? Is it a bother -- an inconvenience? Are you so cynical that you think it doesn't matter who is elected? (I sometimes share that cynicism.) Do you see it as a duty or as a privilege or as a right? Do you feel courageous as you mark your ballot?

In recent years, Americans have been put to shame as people in other countries have voted. In South Africa after decades of apartheid, people celebrated finally getting to cast a vote. In Iraq, people turned out to vote in far greater numbers than we will next month even though there were death threats for those voting.

I don't tell people how they should vote (and wouldn't even if the IRS would allow it.) But I would encourage you to think about voting as one of the ways you serve God's Kingdom. Certainly the governments of this world are not the Kingdom of God, but when we vote we have an opportunity to vote the values of that Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is where good news is preached to the poor, release is proclaimed to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and the oppressed go free. (Luke 4) If with our votes we can extend this kingdom, we will be serving God and God's people.