New Zealand's national election day on Saturday
won’t go away—it will occur and merge into the country’s national history. The
sun will rise on Sunday, just an hour earlier.* Both events call for some considered
action on one’s part. The first, decide to vote and vote your decisions. Secondly,
change the time of any household clock or device that isn’t smart enough to do
so for itself. Life will actively continue.
BTW the sun won’t actually rise
at any time different to that which is normally does. My changing of clocks and
devices, doesn’t rearrange universal reality—we live in an ordered universe. Neither
will my voting; though both actions affect the rhythms in personal and national
life.
“Election season”—a bit like “Duck
season’s” limited, loud, and intense activity—now officially over, leaves us
with questions and perspectives for living in the light of day. We live in
a-time-of-questioning, not just through it. Some questions are common to daily life.
Such questions either orient, or reorient us—their voice calling us to fresh
considered action. For Jesus and His disciples questions worked that way in John
9:1-4 . . .
Passing by, they saw a man blind from birth . . .
His disciples asked him: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents
that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents
sinned—this came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him . . .
Jesus answered . . .
We must do the works of him who sent me while it is day . . . Night
is coming when no one can work . . .
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
Our questions, often framed as
alternative answers close us up to considering a different perspective of life
and societal problems; Jesus answers “our or” with “His neither-nor”. He
reorients to working together in the light He is in the world in which we are.
It’s daylight using time . . .
* NZ's Summertime daylight saving time commences 24/09/2017
