Perspective

As a little tyke, I proudly wore a round metal “I Like Ike” political button: red on top, white in the middle with blue lettering, and blue on the bottom. Dwight Eisenhower was our man.  When he won the election, my parents and their friends cheered.  I thought the whole world must be ecstatic, and was in awe that one man could be so important and merit such attention.

I grew up believing the United States of America was a cut above every other nation on earth.  We were top dog, having saved the day in World War II - advanced, very big, strong and secure, with unlimited resources. Our democracy was the perfect form of government that promised never to fail.  This was the intrinsic stuff of an inbred American Dream.

Then one day, John Kennedy was assassinated when I was in study hall laboring over algebra.  A girl ran down the hall, screaming: “The President’s been shot!  The President’s been shot!”  We all sat there and dumbly stared at each other. This wasn’t supposed to happen in America. 

The Motown artists from Detroit became my heroes. Rules still dictated everyday standards, and we girls wore code skirts to school that had to touch the floor when we knelt or else we were sent home. The adults in my life were appalled by the peace symbol.  I couldn’t figure out why. 

Changes came faster, sweeping across every aspect of life.  During my freshman year in college, the same old high school dress code held for the main campus buildings.  By the time I was a senior, we were all wearing jeans, sweatshirts, and tennis shoes, even in the Union.  I went from ratted hair that required a can of hair spray a week to straight, un-styled locks. Expectations were looser.  Everywhere. I felt it.  I lived it.

The Richard Nixon was elected to the presidency, and the Watergate scandal exploded.  Who could be trusted?  Was I supposed to redefine respect? 

What about that incident in the Oval Office, years later, with President Clinton and Monica? 

Now fast-forward…..to election day, November 6, 2012.  The “I like Ike” mentality has evaporated; our country is comparatively complicated.  Families are splintered.  Life feels faster, harder, more reckless, thrill-driven and technologically defined.  The economy is unstable.  Values are spread out so thin you can see right through them. Sure, good things are happening, I don’t deny that, and yet America’s strength - its fiber - seems to be collapsing from within.

Post-election day, I’ve been thinking how time is leading to an eventual end just as surely as there was a beginning - how leaders come and leaders go and change compounds.  Today I rest in the knowledge that at the right time there will be an end followed by a new heaven and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17 and Rev. 21:1).  And today I choose to focus on the present reality: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  (Matthew 28:20)