Warning: Soapbox-standing occurs below.

I’m home sick from work today. I’m in my jammies, wrapped in a blanket, and wallowing in my sniffles, coughs, and all-encompassing germiness. For some reason, the congested version of me is also feeling all fired up (although not so much in a fever way. Kicked that a couple of days ago.)

I don’t know if it’s the exhausting political season wearing on me, or the Sudafed, or even the segment of “What’s Happening, Hot Stuff?” I heard on the radio today, but I am feeling particularly rankled this fine morning.

How lucky we are to live in this beautiful country where it is our privilege, our right, and even our responsibility to express our opinions and promote what we feel is best for our communities and our government. Two thumbs up, say I.

And:

On the radio today I heard someone question the faith and even spiritual status of a prominent member of my faith based on a political statement (which, to add insult to injury, he had misquoted to begin with.)

What business is it of his? Of what consequence is it to any of us?

I don’t know whether to scream or sigh or (likely the best choice) simply abandon this post altogether and hope the anger fuels a miraculous recovery from this cold. Enough with this nose-in-someone-else’s-business garbage. Just stop it. Making a judgment on someone’s spirituality is absolutely dripping with irony, but that’s another post entirely. Enough.

I propose the following:

Let us worry about ourselves. Let us guide and support our own families. By all means, let us vote and protest and hold signs and distribute fliers and promote those things we support and believe in. And at the end of the day, let us go home and simply love each other.

Perhaps I am mistaken. It has happened once or twice before. But it is my belief that there is one most important doctrine of my own faith which is also central to the faiths of many of my friends. It is, hopefully, a guiding force in the lives of all good people everywhere, regardless of spiritual preference. It is to love each other.

Being compassionate, kind, and tolerant is rarely the wrong decision, I think. Two thumbs up.