100th Post
I've reached my one hundredth blog post. If anyone reads these, please let me know! I truly feel like a meaningless voice in the cyberwilderness. I'd especially like feedback from anyone who has read my novel. I have another novel (two-parter) at the publisher now, and ideas for five more, but work and life are displacing time for writing.
Writing, especially fiction writing, is such an act of faith. Or stupidity. A friend asked me why it took me eight years to write the first novel and less than a year to write the second (which may end up being two novels). I could only say that I never thought I'd find a publisher for the first one, so any writing was purely because of the desire to get the story on paper and then perfect it (well, improve it. There are some things I would change now if I could, and I wonder if all writers feel that way).
All action, not just artistic action, is an act of hope and faith. I got my husband to the polls yesterday; I was determined to have him vote early, so now all three of us have voted for John McCain and done our duty. Voting for John McCain is an act of hope, too; Yahoo says we are glum. It always aggravates me when someone tells me how I'm supposed to feel just because some people who were polled felt that way. Anyway, I can't help but display the words of Sara Groves wonderful song. This song brought me out of a slough of despond recently.
you do your work the best that you can
you put one foot in front of the other
life comes in waves and makes its demands
you hold on as well as you’re able
you've been here for a long long time
hope has a way of turning its face to you
just when you least expect it
you walk in a room you look out a window
and something there leaves you breathless
you say to yourself
it's been a while since i felt this
but it feels like it might be hope
it's hard to recall what blew out the flame
it's been dark here since you can remember
you talk it all through to find it a name as days go on by without number
you've been here for a long long time
hope has a way of turning its face to you
just when you least expect it
you walk in a room you look out a widow
and something there leaves you breathless
you say to yourself
it's been a while since i felt this
but it feels like it might be hope
Many conservatives are feeling hopeless right now. If these conservatives are Christian believers, they are wrong to feel this way, no matter how understandable it may be. God will not stop being God on November 5th. For those of us who admire John McCain and are appalled that Americans would find Barack Obama a more inspirational figure than McCain, I would simply point out that what we admire about McCain is his tenacity, his ability to go through, by choice even, what he did, his honor. McCain has been criticized by the right for not bringing up Jeremiah Wright; I believe he was right to do so, both politically and morally. True, he didn't want to be accused of any racism in attacking a black minister, but I think he also is a man who believes things like church membership to be personal and beyond public criticism.
So I do feel a lot of anger about this election, and not just because my candidate is supposed to lose. It's why he's losing. It's the stupidity of the electorate, the short-sightedness about the economy, the gullibility, the money pouring in from foreign sources to support Obama, the lies from the left, the venomous attacks on Palin, the media's incredible bias that they haven't tried to hide and has even flagrantly admitted to, Hollywood's audacity, the voter registration fraud, the rhetoric of polling, and I could go on. And I'm mad that Bush has ruined it twice for McCain. First in South Carolina with vicious lies in 2000, and now with the overspending of his administration. And I'm mad that the Right does not live up to its higher ideals and often resorts to a lot of the same ethical problems of the left.
All that said, I have not lost hope. Obama will have to govern (what a joke, him governing) from the Center; even his own party will not go along with some of what he would like to do. In two years the American people, enough of them, will come out of their stupor, realize they are paying more taxes despite everything they believed, realize we are less safe than now, and vote in some conservatives.
Even more, I have not lost hope because even if this country becomes Socialistic (more than it already is) and antagonistic toward Christians (something even I can admit may be partially understandable considering the rhetoric of some parts of the Religious Right), God is still God.
Writing, especially fiction writing, is such an act of faith. Or stupidity. A friend asked me why it took me eight years to write the first novel and less than a year to write the second (which may end up being two novels). I could only say that I never thought I'd find a publisher for the first one, so any writing was purely because of the desire to get the story on paper and then perfect it (well, improve it. There are some things I would change now if I could, and I wonder if all writers feel that way).
All action, not just artistic action, is an act of hope and faith. I got my husband to the polls yesterday; I was determined to have him vote early, so now all three of us have voted for John McCain and done our duty. Voting for John McCain is an act of hope, too; Yahoo says we are glum. It always aggravates me when someone tells me how I'm supposed to feel just because some people who were polled felt that way. Anyway, I can't help but display the words of Sara Groves wonderful song. This song brought me out of a slough of despond recently.
you do your work the best that you can
you put one foot in front of the other
life comes in waves and makes its demands
you hold on as well as you’re able
you've been here for a long long time
hope has a way of turning its face to you
just when you least expect it
you walk in a room you look out a window
and something there leaves you breathless
you say to yourself
it's been a while since i felt this
but it feels like it might be hope
it's hard to recall what blew out the flame
it's been dark here since you can remember
you talk it all through to find it a name as days go on by without number
you've been here for a long long time
hope has a way of turning its face to you
just when you least expect it
you walk in a room you look out a widow
and something there leaves you breathless
you say to yourself
it's been a while since i felt this
but it feels like it might be hope
Many conservatives are feeling hopeless right now. If these conservatives are Christian believers, they are wrong to feel this way, no matter how understandable it may be. God will not stop being God on November 5th. For those of us who admire John McCain and are appalled that Americans would find Barack Obama a more inspirational figure than McCain, I would simply point out that what we admire about McCain is his tenacity, his ability to go through, by choice even, what he did, his honor. McCain has been criticized by the right for not bringing up Jeremiah Wright; I believe he was right to do so, both politically and morally. True, he didn't want to be accused of any racism in attacking a black minister, but I think he also is a man who believes things like church membership to be personal and beyond public criticism.
So I do feel a lot of anger about this election, and not just because my candidate is supposed to lose. It's why he's losing. It's the stupidity of the electorate, the short-sightedness about the economy, the gullibility, the money pouring in from foreign sources to support Obama, the lies from the left, the venomous attacks on Palin, the media's incredible bias that they haven't tried to hide and has even flagrantly admitted to, Hollywood's audacity, the voter registration fraud, the rhetoric of polling, and I could go on. And I'm mad that Bush has ruined it twice for McCain. First in South Carolina with vicious lies in 2000, and now with the overspending of his administration. And I'm mad that the Right does not live up to its higher ideals and often resorts to a lot of the same ethical problems of the left.
All that said, I have not lost hope. Obama will have to govern (what a joke, him governing) from the Center; even his own party will not go along with some of what he would like to do. In two years the American people, enough of them, will come out of their stupor, realize they are paying more taxes despite everything they believed, realize we are less safe than now, and vote in some conservatives.
Even more, I have not lost hope because even if this country becomes Socialistic (more than it already is) and antagonistic toward Christians (something even I can admit may be partially understandable considering the rhetoric of some parts of the Religious Right), God is still God.
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