I was doing the requisite chatting with the darling upon my return from Beaumont yesterday when she gave me an imploring look and confessed, ‘I have to admit I made another 25 phone calls for Obama this morning. I couldn’t help myself.’ Huh? Why the confession? It’s not like it’s an addiction problem; she and Doc Boner made some calls together on Saturday. That’s it. Well, though we’ve sported the campaign yard signs the last couple of weeks; and t-shirts and bumper stickers. But that’s it. Oh, well, and she’s gotten friends and acquaintances yard signs and t-shirts and bumper stickers. And the same for our kids and their mates. Oh, and I ordered us all customs t-shirts from an artist in Minnesota who supports the effort. But that’s it. Well, and oh, we’ve sent a few bucks off to the campaign, most recently last week, ‘okay, send ‘em another hundred, but that’s it.’
 
Though I wouldn’t be surprised to catch her making calls tomorrow to get the vote out. This from a woman who by her own admission didn’t realize there even was a war in Vietnam while she was going to college (‘ahem’ responded the incredulous war veteran suitor, ‘where did you think all your friends were disappearing to?’), and was quite put out on her honeymoon by her new hubby’s insistence on listening to the Watergate hearings on the radio while we drove the highways of, oh, Montana and Wyoming in our of course VW bus, camping our way through the western parks, ‘Do we have to listen to that?’ ‘You’d prefer country/western? That’s all we can get on the radio. Besides, these bastards are going down and I wanna hear it. Or we could pull over and make out.’ ‘Oh, let’s just listen to the damn hearings,’ with a cluck. What a political marvel she’s become, though her transformation probably cost a libidinous price on my part over the years, which I undoubtedly offered nobly upon hearing yet once again, ‘Let’s just watch the damn hearings.’
 
The three kids and their mates were all here last night for a few hours of what is for me, always, glad times. They’re cool folks, y’know. At eight months, The Queen was also here and accepted, even invited, being loved by everybody in the circle, holding her, playing with her, feeding her, camera flashes going off. What a gracious gift it is to be born into a family of such love; what a divine necessity it is to be the family of that love, the very arms of God. She has a spine, now, so sits with us when we eat, gumming her biscuit or pounding it on the table or letting out a yell—experiencing in that gathering around the table what it means to be us, to belong with us; living in the most obvious realm of the reign of God—the family feast. It’s interesting in a Lutheran sort of way that the experience of this love has already created in her the magical thinking to which she’ll be held hostage the rest of her life: ‘it’s all about me.’ Ye olde <i>’iustus et peccator’</i> of Brother Martin which often gets translated as ‘at the same time saint and sinner’, but could just as easily mean ’still loved and loving while being a self-centered asshole’, which is what you become as you develop the self-consciousness to be able to love. Bro Marty named it <i>incurvatus in se</i>—the original sin plaguing us all—’a man [sic] turned in on himself’. ‘Yeah’ believes the baby ‘it’s all about me.’ It is the intuitive power driving the rest of our days if it is not disciplined: ‘Whaddya mean it’s not all about me? Is that even possible?’ Ya gotta have that self-centeredness loved out of ya.
 
While this little spiritual drama was taking place, the rest of the clan went on to discuss among other things politics, taking satisfaction in having voted early and unanimously, swapping stories of encounters with both joy and fear (‘Dude hanging out his car window screaming at me ‘He’s a socialist! A socialist!’ and flipping me off’). There is great contentment in righteousness, in having done your part for your neighbors, though there yet remains the anxiety of knowing I vote rather consistently on the losing side.
 
Indeed, so acute was the anxiety that like a kid waiting for Christmas I could keep my mind on nothing else, impatient for the returns to begin. They finally came and were unwrapped and it went great for our guys, though not, natch, down here in bubbaland (though a fella can at least dream, eh?). John McCain gave a gracious and good speech, eliciting from the phone-call-lady currently savoring an iced Amaretto, ‘First honorable thing he’s said in months.’ Somebody else, ‘Where the hell was this John McCain during the campaign?’ Obama was equally gracious toward him—admittedly an easier job when you’re the winner—but nonetheless upholding the honor of McCain’s service as a reminder to us (well, at least, <i>moi</i>) who believe he dishonored himself in his campaign by giving himself over to be ‘handled’ by the disciples of Karl Rove and his perverse politics of fear and hatred, creating suspicion and animosity between neighbors: divide and conquer. I dare to hope that this election has delegitimized that style as acceptable public discourse, because the reptilian mindset of the Rush Limbaughs and their constant sneering has infected so many of my and my pals’ churches where small mobs think that bullying, mockery, and division is the proper way to debate. It is my prayer that our screaming and spitting at each other will give way to a new dignity and respect in public discussion.
 
My life has been blessed with some pretty historic events. There was Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth (the Russians are coming! the Russians are coming!), and then the first men to walk on the moon (sitting in the barracks dayroom in Vietnam watching armed forces tv), and the fall of (Russian) communism with the Berlin wall. I came of age in the 60’s against the tv background of the civil rights’ movement witnessing a people trying to break free of the oppression of a segregated society being terrorized by both the klan through its beating and bombings and lynchings and then the police with their nightsticks and dogs and water-cannons. At Luther League we debated the issues among ourselves and with our elders; got all excited over the movie “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”: because of it’s dicey material: a white woman takes her black fiancée home to meet her parents for the first time and—gasp—they kiss on screen, this black man and white woman. I lived when cities exploded into riots and fires borne of the impotent rage of powerless people beaten down again and again. And then I watched the March on Washington and heard Martin Luther King Jr’s speech, ‘Some day,’ he said to the terrorized. ‘Some day.’ ‘How long?’ he said, ‘not long.’ Because the arc of history bends in the direction of justice.
 
And every now and then you are privileged to see the turn taken. It’s interesting to reflect on the observation that my coming of age was formed in the context of this most public and brutal time of the struggle and now, standing on the banana peel to the grave, have participated in the culmination of that struggle to prove that all men are, indeed, created equal; all women are created with equal dignity. We believe that as Americans; we’ve just proved it to the world. I’ve been amazed to watch the celebration of his election all over the world, more than merely a global sigh of relief, it seems a cry of joy; perhaps a shout of exultation that the idea of America is still possible. It’s that hope stuff, I think. Lemme give some sendouts to the holy spirit here, who seems to be moving about, ’cause there’s some spiritual thing going on among the peoples of the earth.
 
Of course, there is this transcendent moment shimmering in the star field of the universe’s spiritual drama, and then there is tomorrow demanding its decisions and deals. There is the symbol, and there is the reality. I’m not very disappointed that my party didn’t get the ol’ filibuster-proof majority thus giving it absolute power. For as we’ve seen so clearly over the past eight years, not only does it corrupt, but absolute power creates absolute and dangerous idiots. LBJ pummeled the congress into voting for the civil rights act which made yesterday’s election possible; and he also escalated a little regional conflict in Vietnam into an evil and immoral war in which we killed millions. It’s that <i>simul iusts</i> stuff—at the same time saint and sinner, at the same time good and evil—or what I call the Beckerian Paradox: man is a God who shits. The more the power, the bigger the shit. That’s why we call ‘em the big shits. Power insanity is trans-political, infecting us all—even Jesus (as in the temptations). I’m pretty sure the recognition of that is why three co-equal branches of the government were formed. Myself, I don’t trust anybody enough to give even my party all the power.
 
And in fact I find myself thinking of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright in one segment where he’s going off about the evils of American society and how it keeps the poor trod underfoot and so on and so on and then says, ‘And if you become president, Barack, I’m coming after you, too, ’cause now you are the system that keeps these people down’, which made absolutely perfectly good Biblical sense to me, though we know about how prophets are treated in their own country, and so it got lost in all the stylistic brouhaha. Prophets speak to human systems, not to political parties: ‘I’m coming after you, Barack, because now you are the system.’ There’s a saying at our pastors’ bs group that you can replace a bad king with a good king, but you still have the empire that lives off the victims it creates. Though all in all, I’d still rather have a good king.
 
And, though I am awed and inspired by the guy, keep my eye him.
 
‘Bout a year ago we elected a new bishop in our synod after a 16-year reign by my pal and now proudly retired bishop Paul. The way we do that is get about whatever 500 – 600 people together through a process of voting you (as a clergy) off the raft, as it were, a kind of electoral king-of-the hill, though not nearly as blatant as voting you out; rather, you just don’t get enough votes to stay in. Whoever’s left after however many rounds it takes gets stuck with the office and there is an outpouring of good-will and spiritual <i>bon homie</i> and we’re clapping and congratulating the moment and the victim and very-soon-to-be-retired bishop Paul whose face is draining of tension like a wax mask under a heat lamp (‘fuckit; I’m outta here’). Order was restored and I stood at the mike and was recognized by the soon-to-be ex and I asked, ‘Can we start complaining about him now?’ and it got pretty silent all of a sudden and he said ‘What?’ and I said ‘He’s elected. Can we start complaining about him now?’ There was, as I recall, a nervous laugh and a lot of puzzled faces; a typical Keene moment—what’n the hell’d he say this time Margaret? The soon-to-be ex bish ruled me out of order: ‘Naw, let’s go party first. Plenty of time for that other later,’ and adjourned us to the bar.
 
Nice.