The Lunch Party

    It's true that the next presidential election is still a year-and-a-half away and new candidates are jumping into the race daily, but I've already decided who I'll vote for.
 

    My presidential candidate epiphany came a few weeks ago during a Sunday  service at my church, Peace (see post from 6/24/2014).

Peace.

        Anyway, on that Sunday morning our Pastor, Kai Nilsen, was preaching on the Gospel story of the conversation about water between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4: 5-15).
      Pastor Kai explained how at the time of Jesus there was great ingrained animosity between Judeans and Samaritans that went back centuries, and in order to illustrate the earth-shaking significance of Jesus, a Judean, engaging in conversation with a Samaritan our pastor said, "It would be like Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton having lunch together."
    The congregation laughed, but in my mind I pictured Cruz and Clinton sitting across from each other in a nice restaurant, chatting pleasantly, chuckling over some little joke, sharing insights and ideas from their personal and professional experiences.
    And that's when the thought hit me like a bolt from the blue:  If Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz would sit down and ate lunch together I'd vote for either of them!
    And I decided right then and there that I'm voting for the person who's first and foremost agenda will be not peace in the Middle East,  immigration reform, or the economy, but getting Democrats and Republicans on the Hill to sit down and eat lunch with each other on a regular basis. I'll vote for the person who can make  John Boehner sit down and eat with Nancy Peolosi, make Mitch McConnell  sit down and eat with Harry Reid, and can make all their subordinates to do the same. 
    And all these senators and representatives will be required to talk to each other over lunch.  About any old thing.
     Because that's how it starts.  Because people,  whether they're the most powerful leaders on the planet or the likes of you and me, who start  breaking bread together and sharing conversation can no longer  distance and categorize each other (another lesson from a Pastor Kai sermon) and who knows, perhaps the members of the United States Congress, whose tactic now seems to be the garnering of power by attempting to debilitate each other and in the process end up debilitating our country, will discover that there's power to be had- and progress to be made -  in cooperation.
     I don't want to hear any more empty promises from presidential candidates of "reaching across the aisles" - the aisles in the Capitol building are 'way too wide for any of their arms.
    So let our Democrat and Republican leaders,  who are always trying to convince the rest of us that they're just like the rest of us, starting being like the rest of us.  Let them start  sitting across from each other and hashing around our country's and world's problems over a sandwich

or a bowl of bean soup.

      Then maybe our country and our world would see some progress.
    And so the presidential candidate who promotes eating lunch together is the one who will get my vote.
    As long as they promise one more thing. What that thing is I'll share tomorrow.