Which Prince To Trust

Do not put your trust in princes,
   in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
   on that very day their plans perish.   from Ps 146

Living inside the DC Beltway, in the swing state of Virginia, there is no escaping the presidential election. It is everywhere I turn, and even though I tend to be a bit of a political junkie, I am tired enough of it to be getting a bit snarky. Once or twice I have found it impossible not to comment on someone's politically oriented Facebook post, a practice I normally avoid.

My snarkiness aside, we Americans do make a big deal about presidential races. We don't have kings or queens of princes. And so I suppose that presidents are as close as we get. I saw an interesting piece on presidential elections today in The Christian Century. It commented on the candidates attempts to make personal connections with voters, but then it said this.

   But the primary problem with American political culture isn’t that we emphasize the wrong things when we scrutinize presidential candidates. It’s that too much of our scrutiny goes to these two human beings in the first place.
   Americans overestimate what a president can do. The office is certainly more powerful than it used to be, especially when it comes to foreign policy. But on domestic issues, the main focus of this election, presidents are greatly constrained by the federal system of checks and balances—and by the fact that many decisions fall to state and local officials.

I think that most of us know this to some degree. We realize that no president can get much done if Congress doesn't help out, yet we may not even know the names of those running for our congressional district seat.

People have accused President Obama of messianic pretensions, but it seems we all tend to place unrealistic hopes and dreams on our choice for prince. The psalm today warns us about this, but few of us heed such warnings. One candidate will save us, but the other will lead to our destruction.  Such is the power of princes to us.

The psalms' warning on princes takes notice of their mortality. The day will come when they are gone. The world will still be here, and God will still be in charge. But in our fascination with princes, this is "the most important election of our lifetime," or for some, "the most important election in history."  Hardly. Perhaps it isn't just princes we overestimate. We have an inflated sense of our own importance and imagine that history hinges right where we are, on the very issues that concern us.

I just started reading MaryAnn McKibben Dana's book, Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family's Experiment with Holy Time. I've not gotten far, but as I read of her family's struggle to implement Sabbath keeping, I saw a metaphor for much that traps and enslaves us, that makes us anxious and afraid that things could slip away from us if we are not ever vigilant, ever busy, ever careful. We cannot leave anything to chance. Too much is depending on us at this critical juncture in history.

But of course our breath with soon depart us as well. The world will still be here, and God will still be in charge. But if my candidate doesn't win...

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