Trump.

Clinton.

If you are like some people I know, one of those names throws you into paroxysms of loathing, disgust, or rage. If that’s true for you, everything you read and hear confirms that you are right. If (that name) prevails in November, life will be unbearable. Everything that happens for years after that will demonstrate to you that you were right all along.

“You have a confirmation bias!”

“No I don’t! You do!”

“See? I told you so!”

I have friends and brothers who stand on one side of that divide, and friends and brothers who stand on the other. I do not think their thoughts.

“Out of the cacophony of suffering and chaos that can mark human life, the life artist sees or creates a symphony of meaning and order. A life of wholeness does not depend on what we experience. Wholeness depends on how we experience our lives.”
     ― Desmond Tutu

Life artist. A life artist. What does it take to be an artist? My sister is an artist, a real one in the usual sense of the word. She paints and draws with passion and intelligence. She teaches art too, has for years. Our dad used to ask her when she’d get a real job, not just making pictures. She knew all along, though, that what she was doing was important and rewarding. She would open new worlds for young people, one after another after another. She would save some kids’ lives. With art. Her art.

In recent months she has faced some big challenges — you know, that C-thing — meeting them head-on with passion and intelligence. That was when I started to notice her mastery as a life artist. She decided what to do (what picture to paint) and started by assembling the tools to do it. Some art projects need charcoals, paint, canvas and brushes; others need medicine, instruments and machinery, a healthy diet, rock-solid belief and gritty determination. Both need vision, seeing beyond what is to what can be. I see a pattern here. Attitude.

“We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.”
     ― Charles R. Swindoll

I admire my sister the artist. She takes the 10% and smothers it with the 90%. Kills it.

We’re all screwed! Ha, funny little thing to say, or is it your belief? I don’t want this to be the attitude I choose. No matter what happens in November, I will still live my life. Do you really think we’re all gonna die, or that you’ll have to defend your home against marauding (that name again) supporters? C’mon. We’re friends. We love the same country.

I remember not-so-many words from all the countless sermons I have heard in oh-so-many church services over oh-so-many years. Some of those long-remembered words (I was about ten, but sixty-some years later I can still hear Fr. Herbert’s voice) are these:

Two men looked out from prison bars.
One saw mud; the other, stars.

I want to be a life artist. It’s a real job, and it’s about attitude, choosing my own attitude. I choose how I experience my life.

And, oh yes, I vote.