Cosmic Consequences

With the Giants the new World Series champions, we can now go guitar shopping. Asherel was quick to remind Arvo as the Giants began flooding the baseball field, spitting sunflower seeds like confetti and leaping victoriously on each other's heads that per his promise, she was now owed a celebratory guitar.

But it will have to wait til tomorrow. Today, for the 13th year in a row (or so) we will run a Kids Voting booth. We are asked to do so little to keep this democracy running. Pay taxes, be informed, and vote. I guarantee more people know the exact statistics of every major league batter better than the Bill of Rights. We are so good at excuses- let some one else be informed and vote. Let someone else pay for my health care, for my retirement, for my chocolate bon bons.  Running the Kids Voting booth is my little way of saying "Informed voting matters. It is a duty and a privilege. And you get a cute sticker that says you voted."  The research seems to indicate that in countries where mock voting for kids is promoted, the kids tend to grow up and vote. I feel like I am investing in the future of my country.

Election Day for our family has always been a big deal. We gather around the television as the polls return with markable maps in hand. Anders, our oldest, was fanatic about staying up til the wee hours of the morning on presidential election nights, marking the states red or blue and counting electoral votes. We buy special dinners, cheer our team on when they are winning, and despair when they are losing. This is an event with consequences though, and more than a guitar is riding on the results.

Choices matter. Today we get to choose who will serve us in this wonderful country that I sometimes fear is collapsing from within. We have to wait til the first Tuesday in November to make that choice each year. But God gives us a choice every day. I love how Joshua reminds his people that the most important choice for leadership they will ever make they can make NOW. This day the choice is spread before you.
And the reward for the winners in that cosmic election will be plucking strings to a heavenly choir. The losing team  will find their strings a little too hot to pluck.

Joshua 24: 15
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”