I’m an Independent, not registered with any political party; although neither the Democrats nor the Republicans seem to know that based on the literature and surveys they send me – both parties clearly think I’m one of them. Go figure.

I don’t know who will win the election in November and I’m not trying to send any messages about who to vote for. But, I found the closing words of President Obama’s speech to the Democratic National Convention last night extremely moving:

…Yes, our path is harder, but it leads to a better place. Yes our road is longer, but we travel it together. We don’t turn back. We leave no one behind. We pull each other up. We draw strength from our victories, and we learn from our mistakes, but we keep our eyes fixed on that distant horizon, knowing that Providence is with us, and that we are surely blessed to be citizens of the greatest nation on Earth.

I know that was a word to the nation, but in some strange way it also felt like a word to the church.

 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it may own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.            ~Philippians 3.12-14 (NRSV)