Wednesday, September 21, 2005

We Need More Positive Curmudgeons!

[This is the latest installment of my 'Better Living' columns written for the Community Press newspapers here in the Cincinnati area.]

I like George Voinovich, one of Ohio’s two US Senators. But this column isn’t about politics. It’s about a rare ability that Voinovich seems to possess.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and President Bush’s plan to spend an as-yet uncalculated amount of federal money on a massive recovery effort, Voinovich has announced, “I don’t agree with that.”

“That,” as an Associated Press report puts it, is the entire approach being taken by President Bush to Gull Coast relief.

As the article says, “Bush has pushed to make [an earlier $70 billion tax cut] permanent and to repeal the estate tax, saying the government can pay the expected $200 billion to rebuild [the area] on spending cuts alone.”

I promised you that this column isn’t about politics and it isn’t.

It’s about this: George Voinovich, a certifiable conservative Republican, has the guts to break with the prevailing views of the crowd. Even when that crowd is composed of his fellow Republicans, including the President.

It’s not the first time that Voinovich has resisted group think or political peer pressure, either. Described as a budget hawk, in the past, he’s questioned the wisdom of tax cuts in a period when budget deficits are escalating. He also opposed the nomination of John Bolton to be US ambassador to the United Nations.

For these stances, Voinovich has been attacked by his fellow Republicans for being “disloyal” and what’s worse in their lexicon, “liberal.” Voinovich appears undaunted.

How does he do it?

Is this capacity for standing up to the crowd simply endemic to his personality?

I don’t know. I only know that in this ability to stand for what he believes is right, I wish I were more like Voinovich. And I can’t think of the last time I said that about a living incumbent politician.

Whatever the source of George Voinovich’s positive curmudgeonliness, followers of Jesus Christ know that if they truly want it, they too can buck the world’s standard operating procedures and usual ways of thinking.

They can ask for and receive God’s help in being forces for good in the world. That’s true even if the contributions they make seem insignificant.

A woman I know volunteers her time on a weekly basis to teach adults how to read. It isn’t flashy stuff. She teaches one client at a time, spending several months teaching one person the basics of literacy. Then, she moves on to another and then another. Her work often takes her into neighborhoods that her middle class friends fear. In fact, she’s become a bit ostracized for her work. Not overtly, to be sure: The ostracism shows up in unannounced slights and subtle verbal jabs. Her friends even give lip service to her for caring about “those people.” But these friends don’t really understand why she would care about “them.”

She keeps on keeping on. “This is one rewarding way I can share God’s love with other people,” she says.

Both the ostracism and the internal sense of joy that this woman has experienced are usually part of what happens to people who set out to be what Jesus has called His followers to be: salt and light.

They’re to be salt that preserves what is best and ennobling in humanity.

They’re to be light, helping others through the dark passages of life and hopefully, to a relationship with the Light of the world, Christ Himself.

I don’t know where George Voinovich is spiritually. But I do know that we could use a lot more Christ-following positive curmudgeons in the world, people who are made so confident and hopeful by Christ, that they’re willing to stand out from the crowd in order to love God and love others with their whole beings.

That's the kind of person I'm asking God to help me become.

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