(So my friend Jenna is observing National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) by posting every day. I still haven’t made peace with myself about the purpose of my blog, but the more my other friends write fascinating stuff, the more I’m tempted to give it a try as well. So, this is not a commitment, but I am thinking about posting a little more often. And NaBloPoMo seems like a good excuse to do so.)

So … like everyone else in the blogosphere (I really like that word) I will probably say something today about politics. It’s been a unique election season for me. I was tired of the campaigning this time LAST YEAR, so I have to admit that by yesterday, it was pretty old. Also, I voted absentee on the Missouri ballot, so I was not very informed about the local issues that usually mean so much to me. Plus, we’ve been having some fantastic discussions at Continuum Church about Jesus and Politics over the last several weeks. Through some very thoughtful (also a word I’m using a lot right now) conversations, I’ve given more consideration than ever before to my choice for a president.

Now, over the last year I have changed my mind about a lot of things, and the overriding change has been to becoming a person with hope for the future. Not just when Jesus finally comes back and fixes everything, but now and soon. I don’t honestly believe that my personal choice for president in 2008 is going to get us very far towards that goal. But that’s fine, because I’m not counting on the government to do what can only be done by individual people choosing to live our lives in a new way. And I have hope that we will.

HOWEVER I’m still frustrated by the lack of thoughtful (see, there it is again) conversation and information in the general election. I think that we need more choices. I think that we need a new definition of the political spectrum; traditional explanations of “right” and “left” are worn out. And I’m tired of seeing moderate candidates forced to polarize themselves in order to be distinctive. So I want some more legitimate options.

BUT I take very seriously the privilege of helping to choose my government. I believe that it matters that I vote. And I desperately want my vote to count. And I hate feeling frustrated.

SO this year I did something different. I used my vote to actually say what I wanted to say: let’s open up this discussion. And I voted for a third-party candidate. Not because I thought he could win, but because

Now that the final results are in, I see that not many others made the same choice I did. And I have hope.