Guest Blogger on the Newburyport Blog
February 8th, 2008(Editor’s Note: I haven’t had a guest blogger on the Newburyport Blog for quite a long time. And I’ve been thinking about it. What I’ve decided is to do is to have guest bloggers, by invitation only. Frank Schaeffer is the Newburyport Blog’s first invited guest blogger.)
I am an Obama supporter, because the society that Obama is calling us to sacrifice for, is a place where life would be valued, not just talked about. And as he said in his speech delivered on February 6 in New Orleans, “Too often, we lose our sense of common destiny; that understanding that we are all tied together; that when a woman has less than nothing in this country, that makes us all poorer.” Obama was talking about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but his words also apply to our overall view of ourselves.
And When I listen to Obama speak (and to his remarkable wife, Michelle) what I hear is an understanding of a world that nurtures life. Obama is trying to lead this country to a place where the worth of each individual is celebrated. A leader who believes in hope, the future, trying to save our planet and providing a just and good life for everyone, is a person who is for life.
After 9/11, Bush told most Americans to go shopping, while saddling the few who volunteered for military service with endless tours of duty (this is something that I understand, since my son was a Marine, and deployed several times).
As a nation we need to stop seeing ourselves as consumers. We need to stop seeing ourselves as me and begin to think of us as we. Our country needs someone to show us a better way, a president who is what he seems, someone with actual moral values, that our diverse population could believe in, who has the qualities that make us want to follow him. For me, Barack Obama is that person.
Frank Schaeffer © 2008
(Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times best selling author. He is a frequent blogger on the Huffington Post where you can read a more detailed version of this entry. His latest book Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back, is an insiders look into what the Religious Right is all about. Frank has often been mentioned on the Newburyport Blog.)