This weekend’s been busy for my family. We attended an Indiana Pacers game Friday night to support a friend who was performing in the pre-game show and sat with her friends and family. Yesterday afternoon, we went to a farewell party for my former boss and saw many of former co-workers I hadn’t seen in ages. Last night, my husband took me out to dinner for my birthday. Since we didn’t have to pick the kids up for a while, we spent about an hour in the restaurant bar, talking to a couple of other patrons and the very funny bartender.

None of this is extraordinary, except that during these various events, people once again made the assumption that I was, of course, politically conservative. With Super Tuesday looming, the conversations seemed to turn toward politics – nationalized health care, the environment, foreign policy, and the Iraq War which the Bush administration has done such a complete job of spinning, it HAD to be accompanied by talk of 9/11.

Since these were all social events and I was surrounded by people whom I like very much, I held my tongue most of the time. I politely smiled and nodded while my very sweet husband, who is far more conservative than I am in most ways, tried to come to my defense, pointing out the more egregious flaws in their assertions as kindly as he could

The long and short of it is – I’ve spent the whole weekend silently mulling over all this crap. And today, as I was doing the breakfast dishes and preparing for tonight’s Super Bowl party, I found myself singing an old George Michael song. All his silly antics aside, Michael’s a pretty good musician, and this song is one of my favorites. It took me a while to realize that this song has been stuck in my head all weekend, and it says all the stuff I wanted to say in a beautiful and kind way that I would never have been able to manage. The song is off his “Listen Without Prejudice” CD from 1990. Even almost 20 years later, the lyrics are hauntingly relevant:

These are the days of the open hand
They will not be the last
Look around now
These are the days of the beggars and the choosers

This is the year of the hungry man
Whose place is in the past
Hand in hand with ignorance
And legitimate excuses

The rich declare themselves poor
And most of us are not sure
If we have too much
But we’ll take our chances
Because God’s stopped keeping score
I guess somewhere along the way
He must have let us all out to play
Turned his back and all God’s children
Crept out the back door

And it’s hard to love, there’s so much to hate
Hanging on to hope
When there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it’s much, much too late
Well maybe we should all be praying for time

These are the days of the empty hand
Oh, you hold on to what you can
And charity is a coat you wear twice a year

This is the year of the guilty man
Your television takes a stand
And you find that what was over there is over here

So you scream from behind your door
Say “What’s mine is mine and not yours.
I may have too much but I’ll take my chances
Because God’s stopped keeping score.”

And you cling to the things they sold you
Did you cover your eyes when they told you
That he can’t come back
Because he has no children to come back for?

It’s hard to love, there’s so much to hate
Hanging on to hope
When there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it’s much too late
So maybe we should all be praying for time

-         “Praying for Time” by George Michael 1990

Amen.