Ya know, yesterday I was going to write a mean spirited article.  I was going to write that "...now you Christians know how it feels to have your faith dragged through the mud by a few people who do not adheare to it's principles..."  You see, I am Muslim, and to reveal this, and to write mean spirited articles would simply do exactly what I am accusing our media, and our politicians are doing.  I am glad that I really could not think of the words to say in a rational manner because of anger, and gitty joy I had when this evangelical pastor had his public fall from grace yesterday.

However, I see another side.  I saw this interview with him, his wife in the truck, kinda pinned in by the microphone shoved in the face of the minister.  I could imagine her and her thoughts of her husband's shame being televised live on the air in a place where 30 million people of his own faith chose him as a leader based on their principles of thier beleifs that he has gone contrary to.  I thought of his 5 children, and what they must be going through, the people of his congegation, the people he ministered and he gave advice to.  I have to say that honestly, after alot of prayer and contemplation of my own self I felt shameful of my former thoughts about him.  I am deeply sad, but I found out something about myself.  I wanted to "cast a stone", a person, like him, a sinner.

I then had a thought...What if the problem is not so much finding good leaders, but rather, it being too willing to follow.  Perhaps it is time to look at this as a problem as well.  This minister got his popularity because of how he used his faith.  He built a his followers, groomed them by telling them what is right and wrong, instead of giving them information, and or resourses to find what is true on thier own.  He was a "redeemer" in a land of percived enemies.  Anything contrary to what he, and likeminded leaders was "against the will of God".  Only he, and those like him were going to paridise, and evenyone else was evil, and he leads the way.  Do as I do, say what I say, vote as I vote, or you are the enemy. 

What I did not see is after his fall, no one came to his aid in public.  None of his 30 million evangelicals who followed him.  No political official that the advised every week spoke on his behalf.  No memebers of his congregation, no one at all.  They all distance themselves from him as if the has a deadly, contagious diese.  They left thier wounded man to die in the wilderness.

I guess this is my point, finally, in a round about way.  In this election time we are all looking for a good leader.  A person who can take us out of what we feel is wrong with our state and or country.  We point at polls and pitfalls to encourage us, or discourage us, and in another person, we look for our best interests.  I guess this is the system of representitive governance we have, and it sucks, but it is the best in the world if we make it work.  When we choose, let us not choose on the best interests of others.  Let us not choose based on ideology, hatred of the alternative, partisanship, and or anything besides the god given reason and judgement that we have been gifted with.  And most of all, let us choose, all of us.  Let us not take for granted the one time that all of us can influence the way our governance moves.  It will not be perfect of course, simply because the people we choose are just like us...sinners.

A person who is well informed is less of a follower.  Let us all be less of a follower.

Zanubiyah