independent

Yesterday when I got my new driver's license I also registered to vote.  I'd made up my mind a long time ago how I would register, but still when I stood at the counter pen in hand, it took a deep breath before I could check the "other" box and write in the word Independent.  As I've said before, I've ventured into a land where I'm neither conservative nor liberal, Republican or Democrat.  This was not an easy choice.  Will and I sacrificed our financial well-being and our marital well-being not to mention dragged poor Ty around for years in service of the Republican Party.  So parting from it wasn't a knee-jerk, thoughtless decision.  And honestly, we put in our time.  In Will's seven years of political consulting, he did more for the Republican Party than almost anybody I know personally has done in their entire lifetime.  And I endured countless days and nights when he never came home for the sake of the cause.  Which makes the decision that much more painful.

But this party isn't the party I sacrificed for.  I could go into why but this blog isn't meant to be a place where people are easily offended.  But I don't agree with the way the administration has stomped all over the constitution and our freedoms.  Ty, flying by herself to Nashville a few weeks ago, was chosen to be searched, was searched all over, in front of the world and not by a very nice lady either. I thought to myself, "This is not freedom when a 15-year-old traveling alone is felt up and made to feel like a criminal simply for showing up to fly on a plane.  I can choose to be free or safe.  But never both." 

While the Democrats seem to care about more issues that are dear to me these days, they're about as organized as a kitchen junk drawer and until they open up their doors to people who think a fetus is an American with constitutional rights, I'm on the outside there too.

All of this is to say, I can't sit around anymore and pledge allegiance to the elephant.  Or the donkey.  I prefer to throw out my primary vote and sit back in a place called "prophetic distance".  A place I can watch with, hopefully, a little more clarity, judge planning and policy with a little more freedom to ask "Is this really pleasing to God or am I making excuses because I want it to be, because it makes me fear less and lines my pocketbook more?"

Please don't think I'm judging anyone if they're Republican or a Democrat, but this is just my journey and I wanted to share.  I feel more like a stranger on this earth with every day that passes, and I think I'm only beginning to understand the concept of being an alien in a foreign land, how, as a Christian what it means to be "of the world".  For me, this doesn't just include abstaining from immoral practices, but judging by a more righteous standard the "principalities and powers".  As a writer, I can only pray it clears the way for truth. 

Flannery O'Connor, speaking up about an editorial in Life magazine, said:

"What these editorial writers fail to realize is that the writer who emphasizes spiritual values is very likely to take the darkest view of all of what he sees in this country today.  For him, the fact that we are the most powerful and the wealthiest nation in the world doesn't mean a thing in any positive sense.  The sharper the light of faith, the more glaring are apt to be the distortions the writer sees in the life around him."

And consider this from her essay The Fiction Writer and His Country: 

"The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural;  and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience.  When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it:  when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock--to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures."
   
Further down in the same piece:

    "Unless we are willing to accept our artists as they are, the answer to the question, "Who speaks for America today?" will have to be: the advertising agencies.

    And finally in the same essay:  (I love this)

    "Where the artist is still trusted, he will not be looked to for assurance."

    Why am I writing?  I've said it before.  I do not write to comfort the afflicted, I write to afflict the comfortable.  Sometimes, those who have lived through similar experiences as my characters are comforted, and I rejoice when that happens.  But if someone reads my book and isn't challenged by the distortions they suddenly perceive, or they still see their distortions as normal, then as an artist I have failed.
    So yeah, I'm an Indepedent.  But more importantly, as a novelist, I'm just plain independent.  I have to be.  It really is my job.

grace,

lisa

ps: maybe I should raise peacocks like Ms. O'Connor!   

Comments

[Sherri]

I appreciate your comments today.

One note: I wouldn't recommend raising peacocks--especially in town. I'm no expert, but some of my relatives have them (they live on a large farm). From my perspective, they are noisy & rather dirty creatures--the world is their litterbox in other words. But perhaps, I'm just looking at their negative attributes--that's my usual defense against having our yard turned into a small zoo. :-)

[Cindy Swanson]

Good for you, Lisa! I totally respect your views on this. I'm glad I don't have to label myself as one or the other in every case, because I will vote for the person I believe best suited for the job, whatever the party label.

[Mary]

I doubt a day will ever come when your work doesn't challenge me. Thank you for answering the call to afflict the comfortable. You've kicked me off my couch many a time...

Mary

[geoff]

great post, lis. thanks for your work and thanks for being so articulate and honest about your vocation - it is an inspiration to us.

[Julie Anne Fidler]

Ah, you are right. You can be free or safe. It's a choice.

I was "felt up" at the Orlando Airport last month, which was a shock to the system since I hadn't flown in 6 years. It was an inconvenience, for sure.

But would I rather be inconvenienced, or blown up in mid-air?

What a hard choice...