The Presidential Election and Signs of Hope

One of the interesting quotes that I read leading up to this year’s presidential election was from Dr. Michael Christensen, the National Director of Communities of Shalom of the United Methodist Church. Michael pointed out that “Jesus was a community developer and Pontius Pilate was a governor.” This was in response to the public criticisms that were then being directed at then-Senator Barak Obama (now President-Elect) by Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice President. Obama’s qualifications for president were being questioned because of his choice – after graduating from Columbia University and Harvard Law School (and serving as editor of the Harvard Law Review) – to return to Chicago’s south side to work as a community developer. The political discourse as to what makes one more qualified and ready for the presidency of the United States – being the governor of Alaska or being a community developer in Chicago – did point to the critical choices that some have made to provide service and leadership in our cities, often in exchange for apparent career mobility and professional prestige. It was not lost on all, however, that Senator Obama was a highly qualified presidential candidate who rose from an impoverished upbringing to become a person of exemplary achievement as a student at two Ivy League institutions and who chose to enter public service as a community organizer and legislator because of a commitment to facilitating change at the grassroots. It’s interesting that the 44th president cut his leadership teeth not in a board room, but on the streets of the south side of the third largest city in America, that he chose not to go to Wall Street, but to serve on “Main Street” with law credentials in hand. These are, in this writer’s estimation, signs of hope for the city. For leaders – from the White House to any house – to have breathed the breath of the city, to have heard the siren sounds of the city, and to have witnessed the human mosaic that is the city – serve as signs that the days ahead will be days of hope and possibility.