Side Street News

Here is today’s Faith & Values column: Saturday, July 14, 2012:

“Some time back I left a comment after an article in the Sun, and someone who wrote after me basically said, ‘Why are you commenting here when you have a bully pulpit you can use?’

I hadn’t ever thought of my faith and values column in that light, but it made me think. The term is loosely defined as the ability to speak out and/or advocate on a variety of matters in a public way, so I guess that is something I do.

Right now, what is concerning me the most is our immediate future.

Please vote.

And not just in the popular presidential race during general election in November, but in the primary in August.

There is so much on the line, no matter which side of the line you’re on.

And while there will be pros and cons for backing the candidate of your choice in any position, there is one thing they all should possess: leadership ability.

And what about you? With your decisions, you are also providing leadership to your community. The candidates you support indicate what you value, what you believe in, what you know to be true and what you expect. Rarely, it seems, do you find everything you want in one person. You wish you could put one person’s tenaciousness with another person’s heart of compassion. One person’s dogged hold on fiscal responsibility with another’s commitment to social justice.

Sometimes we do have to settle for the one closest to our need.

In her recent Baccalaureate address at Stanford University, Sr. Joan Chittister said, “The heroes you make for yourselves, the people you idolize, will be the measure of your own character, your own ideals, your own legacy.

If you want to lead the world to compassion, you must surround yourself with the compassionate, rather than the uncaring.

If you want to lead the world to wholeness, you must follow the peacemakers, not the warmongers.

Justice must mean more to you than money. People must mean more to you than fame. Ideals must mean more to you than power or politics or public approval.

If you want to be a real leader, if you want to give a new kind of leadership, you cannot live to get the approval of a system, you must live to save the soul of it.

‘As long as the world shall last, there will be wrongs,’ Clarence Darrow warned us. ‘And if no leaders object, and no leaders rebel, those wrongs will last forever.’

For if the people will lead, eventually the leaders will follow.”

So what do you want to lead Bremerton, or Kingston, or Olalla to? What are your highest priorities? Clean water and air? A strong law enforcement presence? Top notch teachers? Safe housing for all who need and want it? And with those come how they are gained. What trade-offs are you willing to take? Maybe your candidate has good intentions but doesn’t play well with others.

Please study the candidates and vote.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2012 at 10:53 am by Sally Santana and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.