Keeping the Long View

During this political season The Anchoress offers us this wise and timely reminder of the need for perspective.

When I find myself descending into the madness of political minutiae, I can’t stand myself.

Those times are also the times I find myself most tempted to forget about the humanity of the politicians we write about, and that is where I try really hard not to go.

It is easy to not lie about candidates, and it is easy to not “call names.” Name-calling is not a habit I’ve gotten into. But when I find myself stewing and my brains leaking out of one ear, and I’m forgetting - usually thanks the the obnoxious unfairness of the press - that politicians I dislike are probably perfectly decent human beings with whom I simply disagree very strongly…then I know it’s time to pull back, open the breviary and chant. If I don’t, then it all starts to become much too weighty, and I lose sight of the long view, and forget that so much of what we see and fuss over every day is transient and illusory.

Amen, and amen.