I'm Starting to Get a Little Excited...

Just starting.  The excitement is trickling into my system at a pathetically slow rate.  But Rick Santorum's excellent showing yesterday is helping to get the election juices flowing.

We've had such a whirlwind of ups and downs in Conservative politics and society in general the last several years.  There was ambivalence during the last campaign until the "Republican machine" candidate, John McCain, chose Sarah Palin as a running mate.  That choice generated a little bit of excitement.  People became energized.

We had the economic crises and bailouts, both before and after the election.  Obama was elected and initiated so very many power grabs I wouldn't even know where to begin.  The health care bill stands out as the uber power grab.

There's been the TEA Party movement (and the left's vitriolic misrepresentation of it), Wisconsin's "Governor Walker vs the Teachers' Unions" battle, and the Occupy movement.

It's really been too much.

Somewhere along the way, I lost all interest in current events.  I even started listening to country music.  Really.  That's how bad things are.  If getting drunk and getting ditched by your best girl is better than real life, isn't that pathetic?

I threw up my arms and said with the psalmist,

Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together, ...
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.

And really, that's so true.  What do our little participations in such things matter, anyway?

Come, behold the works of the Lord,
Who has made desolations in the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two;
He burns the chariot in the fire.

But here's the rub.  Even knowing full well that God controls things, and believing that He works everything out for good, we still have a responsibility.  God has placed us in a land with many freedoms.  He has blessed us to live under a government system in which we are privileged to be able to participle.  How far each person takes such a privilege is between them and God.  But for me, that means doing what I can to at least try to help the candidates closest to my views attain office.

Usually that means I try to keep up with current events and the issues facing our nations and the different sides of each issue and the variety of opinions about how to solve such issues.   I try to attend precinct caucuses.  I try to help my local political party of choice in whatever way I'm able.  I give money to candidates when we can.

But that "doing what I can" thing, that gets a little bit gray.  God has given Joe and I many little hands to train and hearts to love and souls to fill with knowledge of Him.  And what is a more primary responsibility?  Being involved in politics, or raising children?  Kind of a no-brainer there.

I complain frequently about the busyness in our lives and our lack of family evenings.  I begrudge the fact that our kids, being in public school all day, now also have occasional evening obligations.  We don't allow them to participate in many things.  But even so, considering how many children have, it still adds up to considerable disruption in the evenings.

With that in mind, I was very unsure this last week or so, whether I was going to attend last night's Pennington County Republican caucus.  When I consider how few nights we have together as a family, taken with my political ambivalence of late, and remembering that God controls all such things anyway, I was rather disinclined to attend.

But then I thought about all the Ron Paul supporters who I knew would be out in droves ... Just kidding... that's for two good friends who I hope know I love them ...

I don't really know why I decided to attend.  Probably a very wide and indefinable set of factors.  Not the least of which was the supper fiasco during the final minutes within which I needed to make my decision.  Nothing like a little supper time fiasco to drive a mother out for the evening, right?

But I must say that I'm cautiously happy about Rick Santorum's victories around the country last night.  Cautious because it's too early to tell whether these victories will be another step in a bigger victory, and also because no candidate is perfect.   Anything can happen.

But suddenly, the primary season is just a little bit more exciting than it was at this time yesterday.