Wednesday, July 06, 2005

The Election Results are In

Since the last election, I have reflected quite a bit on my changing attitude towards voting. Having grown up in small towns and rural areas, I have to admit, voting was a whole lot more of an abstract game for me back then. You listened to the candidates, decided who you agreed with and cast your ballot, but honestly life pretty much went on the same regardless of who was in office. Its a very different thing for me now. A whole new ball game. And I take the election outcomes very personally. You see now, when I see the candidates, I see the faces of the children I work with everyday. When I'm hearing the candidates speak, I am seeing the faces of the children. When I walk into cast my ballot, I'm seeing the faces of the children. They haunt me in my dreams and in my waking hours. In their faces I see the vibrant hope of their sacred dreams, as well as shadows of impending clouds of doubt, as if deep down inside they posses a wisdom beyond their years that knows their grip on hope is tenuous at best...
And now when I cast my vote, I vote for them. I vote for the tiny boy who fainted with hunger and fell out of his chair and onto the classroom floor. I vote for the industrious seven year old girl I know, who due to her mother's alcoholism is more of a mamma than a child. I vote for the four year old who watched through the window while his daddy was being shot in the back yard. I vote for the oh so clever and personable 14 year old boy I know who already seems trapped in a life of gangs and drugs. I vote for the teenage girl who despite being surrounded by a family totally entrenched in addiction, is trying to stay focused, stay in school and make something of her life. I vote for the numerous children I hear pray that their mother / father / sister / brother will come back home and off of the street. I vote for the young people I know who want to go to college, but have to quit for a semester to work to save up enough tuition to return to school due to insufficient financial aid.
Why is it that the most needy, the most vulnerable, and the most innocent segment of society is always the hardest hit by government policy? Yes, I take elections very personal now. How can I not when I'm face to face with the results every day of my life?

6 comments:

Dr. Mike Kear said...

Amen!

I remember vividly my more conservative brothers and sisters asking me how in the world I could support John Kerry in last year's election when he was pro-choice. I tried my best to explain that he was in favor of trying to find a way to get healthcare for every child. I don't understand why people's concern for children suddenly stops once they exit the birth canal.

And can you imagine the good that could be accomplished if we would take half of what we've spent invading and occupying Iraq (where thousands of Iraqi children have been killed), and put that money into helping the children who so desperately need it?

Just my humble opinion.

Peace,

Mike

voixd'ange said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
voixd'ange said...

Your humble opinion is much appreciated! Thanks!

Constantine said...

"...their grip on hope is tenuous at best..."

Sigh. God help us to see how you see Angevoix as to what really matters. Alas, most won't.

voixd'ange said...

But you know what Constantine...even though at times we all feel as if our grip on hope is tenuous, Thank God, hope's grip on us is not!

Dan Trabue said...

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

What the poor need is not charity but capital, not caseworkers but co-workers.
And what the rich need is a wise, honorable, and just way of divesting themselves of their overabundance.

-Clarence Jordan

If we're going to end welfare, the rich should be the first to lose it.

-Mac Morgan