Mitch Albom is a journalist and often has a guest column in various periodicals. In our local newspaper this Wednesday, Album’s column was entitled “Election will be meaningless unless we change.” These are some highlights…
I am less concerned with what we do Tuesday than what we do Wednesday, Thursday, and every day thereafter…(i)f the rest of us keep conducting ourselves the way we have been the last six months, it won’t make a difference (who’s in the White House).
We have all been behaving badly, in all states and in all walks of public life, politics, media, businesses, entertainment…Almost always these days exaggeration is chosen over understatement. Anger over calm. Mean over kind.
…We have demeaned, denigrated, destroyed. We have hurt one another, emotionally and even sometimes physically…Is this who we want to be?
(He continues severely criticizing the media, both the right and the left) I’d point to the need for an independent press as the only thing standing between big power and big money running rampant over the citizenry. Now it seems we (remember, he is part of the media) are running alongside them.
Of course, we have plenty of inspiration from the politicians themselves. You can start with the president…But if you think that makes his opponents holy, you’re not being fair…
We’ve attacked one another over the simple act of wearing a mask. People have been shot…Over a mask? We die on the hill for that?
He denigrates not the summer protests but the looting, burning, destruction and intimidation of innocent people…even violent behavior was justified in the current ideological struggle…the struggle won’t magically be going away. It won’t disappear on Tuesday night. (Whoever the president is) will be presiding over the same nation, the same people, the same Congress, the same media and the same disagreements…
The fact is, we’ve gotten quite used to behaving badly…A recent poll showed three out of four Americans are concerned about violence…
We are stressed, locked down, haunted by a common enemy virus that should have united us but instead divided us further. The truth is, our future won’t be determined by who we choose to lead us…(rather) how we act after we do.
What will the (president) represent? What will we represent? Think about the friends we’ve lost this election season. The neighbors we’ve alienated. Who will we be on Wednesday, Thursday and beyond?
I know this: if the winners gloat and the losers threaten, we won’t be any better than we’ve been the last six months. And does anyone really want the country of the last six months to be the country of the next four years?
AND THIS IS WHY MY SERMON TONIGHT WILL DEAL WITH “HUMOR,”
NOT JOKES, JUST HUMOR IN GENERAL