Praying for Our Enemy

Prayer is a necessity. Without it we see only our point of view, our own righteousness, and ignore the perspective of our enemies. Prayer breaks down those distinctions. To do violence to others, you must make them enemies. Prayer, on the other hand, makes enemies into friends. When we have brought our enemies into our hearts in prayer, it becomes most difficult to maintain the hostility necessary for violence. In bringing them close to us, prayer serves to protect our enemies. — Jim Wallis in Peace Prayers

Actually, the presidential election has not been too mean-spirited in my opinion. Perhaps because both men seem to respect each other underneath all of the ads and debates that require one to differentiate issues and the choices. There doesn’t seem to be a deep divide between the two men that barely allows them to remain in the same room. Maybe McCain has faced enough enemies in his past as a Prisoner of War and Obama has faced enough backlash from his mixed heritage that neither one wants to spend their time unwisely nor wastefully on destructive thoughts. Even the red and blue state divide doesn’t really exist.

The “red state/blue state” divide has become such a staple of cable news since the 2000 presidential election that many people assume that it’s a recent invention, but it isn’t. More importantly, although “red” and “blue” have become rallying cries for political partisans in recent years, the color labels were never intended to last beyond a given election, and are, in fact, supposed to flip in 2008.
The use of “red” and “blue” as color codes on maps of electoral results actually dates back to at least 1908, when the Washington Post printed a special supplement in which Republican states were colored red and Democratic blue The colors were apparently arbitrarily assigned in that case, although in later years both parties strove to claim blue (as in “true blue Americans”) and avoid red, with its connotations of radicalism.
Finally, in 1976, the TV networks agreed to a formula to avoid any implication of favoritism in color selections. The color of the incumbent party, initially set as blue for Gerald Ford’s Republican ticket in that year, would flip every four years. Consequently, a successful challenger runs again in four years, as the incumbent, under the same color. So in 1992, the challenger Clinton was red on the maps, and in 1996, incumbent Clinton was also red. Challenger Bush, red in 2000, was red again as an incumbent in 2004. But perhaps because the pundits decreed 2000 to be a watershed election, the “red/blue” divide has assumed a broader political significance (at least to pundits), and although the formula dictates that the Republicans should be carrying the blue flag in 2008, it will be interesting to see how the networks color their maps.Word-Detective.com/ June 2007

My prayer for the congregation?

Dear God, No one else asks us to pray for our enemies, but you. No one else asks us to love our enemies, but you. This should make it easy to differentiate between following your laws and following the laws of our emotions. Even in the word enemy, we find its source includes the word “friend.” Let us also pray for our own redemption, when we seem to be our own worst enemy. Let love expand in our hearts and minds leaving no room for hate and anger to remain. Amen.