“But purity of heart is to will one thing.”
~Soren Kierkegaard

Summer, 2016

You may remember the heat. The sweltering news cycle. The churn and boil. I do. I was a man on a mission.

I’d evaluated the political landscape, noted the sparse options, and found some were sparser than others. A new kind of public figure dominated the news cycle, one my grandfather might have described as “wearing a silk suit without underwear.” The illusion of flash and bang. The cloying sugar of nationalism without the substance of meat. Signaling virtue without practicing it.

That summer, I sounded that sirens. I pulled from the fixed past to show the potential future. I wrote about it. I Tweeted about it. I took to Facebook to made a record. And if I could have willed one thing, it would have been that the great hoard of American middlemen would have come with a tarry rail, placed the public figure atop it, and carried him back to his penthouse. I did not will hard enough.

Four years have passed, and I do not feel vindicated. My fixation on the fixed past and potential future changed nothing. I suspect it changed nary a heart nor a mind. In fact, I suspect it built walls higher and longer than those promised to our southern border.

The election is upon us, and we’re again entering another season full of flash and bang (from both sides). Here comes the bullying. Here come the promises. Here come the single-issue appeals, the casting of moral imperatives, the in-or-out narratives. Waive the flags. Promote the party. Shoot the fireworks. This is Americana applied to politics. We like our process like we like our Whiskey, full of heartland pride and fire.

This year, I'm taking a different tact than I did in 2016. Why? Because I’ve woken in a world that’s so damned divided it’s hard to have empathy for those on either side, even with feet firmly planted in the middle. There are times I do not recognize the face of my brother, sister, or friend. There are days when the only question I find myself asking is, “Yeah, but what is their play?” I have bent to cynicism. I suppose that’s a confession.

So What’s My Play?

I was taking a break from the workweek, streaming some Sunday content by a Catholic Bishop. In it, he paraphrased Soren Kierkegaard, and I’ll paraphrase his paraphrase: The secret of Saints is to chase after the One Thing. Considering the line, I recognized how much of my 2016 wrangling had nothing to do with chasing the One Thing. In fact, it had more to do with chasing the wrong thing. The temporal thing. The ego-satisfying thing. I wanted to be on the right side of history. I wanted to make my record.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have political opinions, and they’ll come spewing out in terms too forceful from time to time. But this year, I hope to approach my political decisions from a different angle. Instead of aligning for or against a political opponent, I hope to examine the field from the position of the One Thing. How? I’m not exactly sure just yet. I’ll work it out here, starting with Jesus’ grand Sermon on the Mount. (And if you’re not a Christian, hang with me; the principles are generally applicable.) I’ll examine what it looks like to align with the One Thing, to chase the One Thing, to act in a nature consistent with the One Thing.

What is the One Thing? As Kierkegaard puts it, it is to chase after the Good. And what is the Good but God himself?

A Caveat

If you’re a member of my real-life community, you’ll likely see me run afoul of this One-Thing principle. Let me know. I’m a big enough boy to take the criticism. And please know, this does not mean I will not share my opinions on occasion. It simply means I’ll try to do it in a manner more consistent with knowing, serving, loving, and chasing after the One Thing. (Hint: That One Thing is not a political party or figure.)