RBWords - Volume 36 - Number 10: October 2023
Something to Think About
R.B.WORDS - VOL. 36 - NO. 10 - OCTOBER 2024 ********************************************************** SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT - The state of Texas has “early voting,” so I went over to the early voting place on October 24th to cast my ballot. (I wish I could have been there when the cloistered nuns went over there!) I wish I could say that my action meant I could forget about the whole thing, but it seems like we Americans are always voting about something. Maybe it’s the price of democracy, but like other prices it only seems to go up and never down. We haven’t heard the last of the 2020, or even the 2016, presidential elections, especially the former with the mob attack on the capitol building. Two years from now we’ll have to vote again - minus the presidency. I even belong to a religious order - Dominicans - that is noted for its democratic structures and procedures and “separation of powers.” Politics seems to be one of the consequences of original sin because it’s all about power. Eve and Adam thought they could be equal with God in power. As an undergraduate student I was a political science major and then a law student and then Dominican friar. In formation for the latter as well as in membership of the Order, I learned a lot about the philosophy of power in civil society as well as its exercise in the institutional manifestation of the Church (and in my religious order!). Politics is all about the possession and exercise (or failure to exercise) power. Nowadays, one could easily get the impression that it is the game of the wealthy because of the cost of running for office or supporting a candidate. As far as religious life is concerned, I have been required to hold positions of power and I cannot say this was thrilling to me in itself. It was requested by my Dominican brothers who voted me in. Power should mean not power OVER but power FOR. It’s washing the feet of the others. I hope whoever gets elected to whatever office in Texas, USA and elsewhere can remember that. IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
It Has Been Said
“You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.” [Mark 10:42-43]
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