Scribbles
When I finally figured out how to color as a kiddo, I couldn't fathom how I ever thought it was cool to color outside the lines. I was captivated by this new technique of first outlining the black and white picture in a darker color, so that the marker outline could serve as a coloring guide for my undisciplined little hands. As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that not everyone colors inside the lines, because sometimes they're not so black and white. Haven't you noticed how some coloring books have pictures that seem incomplete? It's like the artist decided to leave it up to your imagination to fill in the gaps and decide for yourself how the picture should look...and that's precisely what he did.
This little analogy can be applied to life and politics, of course. We're all frustrated with how political parties operate; they don't cater to our every belief, so we have to end up compromising one thing for another, but that's what it means to live in an imperfect world. God is the artist who drew an incomplete picture for us to finish. He didn't leave it that way because he didn't know how to finish it - but because he made us complete humans instead of empty robots; we have souls and imaginations to finish what he started. If we lived in a perfect world, we wouldn't be free, we wouldn't have the ability to decipher between right from wrong for ourselves. As a result of living in an imperfect world, we have to find ways of making ugly things beautiful without hurting more people than we help. This is what I have to tell myself before casting a ballot. Because the picture is incomplete, there are gray areas...but at least I'm aware of them.
When voting, people often forget how imperfect the world is. Then when they get out of their short-term amnesia phase, they wonder why the country is corrupt and choose to blame the other party instead of themselves. Ok, so I'm being a little vague. Here's a hot topic that's sure to get a crowd talking above a whisper: Abortion. I personally hate it with a passion, but most who hate it as much as I do, just do that...they simply hate it and talk. When they vote someone into power who is against abortion and supportive of a lengthy/costly war, why are they so quick to criticize the unwed mother who can't seem to fill her child's emotional and physical needs? Do they not understand that if they are going to be against an issue, they need to be for the antidote. Instead of using their mouths to ramble on about how dysfunctional today's American family is, why don't they use their pointing fingers along with the rest of their hand to write the very check that would allow the mother to form a secure attachment with her child without having to sacrifice tomorrow's dinner? Also, what about the mother who suffers from a terminal illness, cannot afford birth control, and is married to the abusive man who fathered the 4 children who need her more than anything? What if she happens to get pregnant again while suffering from this illness that would send her to an early grave and leave her children emotionally and psychologically scarred for life? These are the ugly truths that are often ignored when neglectful folks make their way to the polls.
It would be easy to say that abortion is a black and white issue, and though it often is, there are instances in which it becomes a gray one. Regarding the last mother-child situation I described, I know it is emotionally unsettling to imagine a mother having an abortion so that she can stay alive and try to limit the harm done to her other 4 children. But despite the sadness of this woman's circumstance, it is common and there are many true variations of this story. Of course, we should pray for a miraculous intervention for those who suffer most in this world, but God didn't just give us a mouth to call on him whenever difficulty strikes, he also gave us a brain and a heart capable of the kind of compassion that leads to action. Unfortunately, the very party that is against abortion is also the one that uses our money to fund events that do more harm than good. Most of the time, the single mother who chooses to have her child is punished with a judgmental look. Meanwhile, the money that would otherwise be used to better her situation goes toward funding a war that's left other children motherless.
Obviously, this is not the only significant issue at hand. Education is another area that doesn't get enough attention until it's too late, then it's just criticized. Education might be free in this country, but it certainly isn't equal. If you spend all your time in an office, had parents that made six figures, and have never been enlightened by a reality check, then I'm probably speaking another language. Thankfully, I was blessed with a private school education until high school. But I'm far from lucky, and the only reason why I was able to go to a private school in the first place is because I had a mother who worked her butt off (without a college education) and somehow still managed to put me in a good school even while she was single. As a baby, I wore dresses as shirts and inquired about the food stamps before I understood the difference between Blue Cross and CHIP/Medicaid, or any other government funded insurance plan. I had an on-hold reality check at birth that I cashed in when I took out student and private loans in order to pay for insurance and college because, by that time, my parent's income was "right in the middle," if you know what I mean (not enough, but too much to get a respectable amount of financial aid). So I've been at both ends. I know what it's like to wonder if you're going to have enough money to pay the bills, but also know what it's like to be right smack dab in the middle. I guess it's easier to be compassionate when you've been at the same low-point as someone else. Still, there are too many people around us going through their own hell for us to say they don't need our help and they can do it on their own.
Every person has a shadow that's black against a gray sidewalk, so why do we live as if we expect life to be any different? We can color life's shadow with chalk as long as we recognize its outline isn't so clear and that sometimes we will have to color outside the lines in order to make it a little more peaceful looking.
