Be the Change You Want To See In This Election Year

This week we go to the polls to elect our government for the next 3 years. Somewhere in the midst of the electioneering an important fact has gone missing. This is not about the individual who is our Prime Minister, it is not even about who the party is that's in power. It is about the common good, i.e. what is good for all who inhabit this country and the country itself.

Lucy from Charlie Brown suggested, 'Don't vote it only encourages them.' I am not suggesting you don't vote but what Lucy is pointing to is that our individual vote is misinterpreted as a vote for another individual and their wellbeing. She also suggested that 'It doesn't matter who you vote for, you always get a politician.'

Regardless of who wins, the outcome is up to us, and I am not talking about Saturday's poll. I am talking about the changes we want to see. If we want a fairer, more just, more humane country, and hope for the future, then we vote on that every day in how we live, the decisions we make and the examples we give to our children. Very little is achieved by political power especially when that power relies on our ticking the right boxes.

Jesus reminds us that we do, in fact hold the power for change in our lives (see Matthew chapter 5-7 - the Sermon on the Mount) and our school motto (taken from that sermon) reminds us 'To let our light shine".

Voting for the common good, not a political party, in the way we live everyday will make a difference.

The World Needs More Holy Fools.

The world needs more holy fools - people who seem to be out of step with the rest of the world, eccentric and a little odd. Without them our world would just slide off into oblivion, unaware that the daly grind is just grinding it into nothingness. Holy Fools are the rocks that chip away at the 'biegeness' of life and call us back to reality, a reality that says that much of what I am doing is of little or no value. That in fact I take myself way to serious and actually think that what I do in my work a day grind matters. Yet Holy Fools know something else, they have an intuitive understanding about what truly matters.

Holy Fools say things like "Don't sweat the small stuff, it's all small stuff", "First things first", "Calendars are moral documents", "Irrelevance is a gift", "Smile and they will wonder what you're up to", "Play with others and great things will happen", "Be still, very very still, and above all else, don't wobble", "Love your neighbors as yourself", "Turn the other cheek" and loads more.

Holy Fools miss meetings to watch their kids play footy, recite poetry and act in the school play.

Holy Fools take time out to have coffee with their partners, buy some flowers to take home and to secretly order a subscription to their favorite magazine.

Holy Fools go home to sit with their parents, visit a sick mum or dad in hospital or just take them out of the nursing home for a day when responsible people would be at work.

Holy Fools find ways to combine work with their passion, practice non-violence wherever they are and know that the words "Federal budget" and "government policy" refer to a moral document that expresses the true nature of democracy as it is practiced by those elected to govern.

Holy Fools speak out for peace, ethical behavior and social justice even if it means looking like a fool.

Holy Fools know that it doesn't matter what others think about them, just what the man in the mirror thinks, what that moral compass at their core knows and what God, however they see the ground of the being, sees them.

I recently met a man who is a minder to many of the great superstars of music and movies who was asked to write a tell-all book. The contract was worth more than $1 million dollars. He said "No". Why? Because he said he would have to look his 11 year old son in the face and know that he had failed him for he would no longer be a man of integrity, and being a man of integrity was what he wanted his son to be and how could he if his father wasn't? Being a millionaire may have bought his son security but not integrity!

That's a Holy Fool!