First Baptist Church

There’s an old Jewish proverb that says, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” I was thinking about that proverb because, as I write this, it’s the day before Thanksgiving, and I am sitting in my study listening to the pouring rain outside, waiting on my phone to ring.

We’d made plans to go up to my Dad’s tomorrow for Thanksgiving, and share a meal with the extended Tyra clan. However, our daughter is currently in the local hospital, about to give birth to our next grandson. So my wife has called the appropriate family members and apprised them of the situation. Everything is “on hold” for us until the baby is born.

We had all assumed that the new baby would be born before now, and my wife and I could go on to my Dad’s while our daughter and her family spent Thanksgiving at home with the new baby. But apparently nobody told the baby what the plan was, because for the time being he’s still firmly ensconced in his safe, warm place. The Thanksgiving holiday is turning out differently than we had imagined it. And I think I might have heard a chuckle  from heaven.

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Just this morning I was sitting at breakfast with my wife, watching and listening to the news as we always do. When the commercial break came, we were subjected to one political ad after another. I looked at my wife and said, “I will be so glad for the election to be over so we won’t have to put up with these political commercials anymore!”  Or at least for a while.

I understand the importance of free speech as it applies to political discourse. I understand that “mud-slinging” in political campaigns goes all the way back to the earliest years of our nation. I also understand the value of keeping those in office accountable and making the public aware of what they’ve done and said.

But I don’t understand how someone can be a reasonably respectable member of a community and in the public eye, more or less, for years, and then just before an election, suddenly we are told that they are despicable human beings who have done and said despicable things. Until the primary is over; then the accusers link arms with the candidate and tell you why you should vote for the one they had been slandering only a few short weeks before. I don’t know which offends me more: that political campaigns assume we’re stupid enough to fall for such transparent tactics, or that vast numbers of the American public do seem to fall for such transparent tactics. Read More