YES, It Is All About Me

<figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > As this election season comes to a close, I am thankful for the extra time I will have when the winners is declared. Between, emails, texts, television ads and social media, it has been impossible to escape the barrage of truths, half-truths, and no-truths to which we have been subjected. Hopefully we can get back to a civil running of the country and focus on more important things, like ME.&nbsp;Yes, like ME. What I have learned over many election cycles is that running for office is a dirty game where the “best man or woman” doesn’t always win. It’s a game I’ve never wanted to play and a sandbox where I never wanted to dig. However, as a citizen, my role has always been to speak up for injustice and oppression and to try to influence policy for the greater good.&nbsp;But I’ve also come to realize that everyone in my “community” doesn’t agree on the best way to tackle the problems that plague us: obesity, neonatal birthweights, opioid deaths, sex trafficking, and sky-rocketing suicides (among others). And, oh yea, there is our modern-day plague: the pandemic.&nbsp;Starting Wednesday, it will be about “me” and an introspective time of asking myself how I can make a difference in my own world. It’s not about putting out false information on Facebook, or twisting facts for a “greater end game”, it really is about me caring about my own community: the people that I live with, work with, and worship with, in my own world.&nbsp;I’ve realized that I care about immigration and not just “band-aids” but fixing it permanently. I also care about food insecurity. I thought it was a third-world problem but it isn’t. It is a concern in our own backyard. And I care about healthcare. When I graduated from school in the late ‘70’s, I thought I could “fix” healthcare. I’m thankful I’m on Medicare, but my recent experiences teach me that healthcare is still “broken”: fragmented, expensive and inefficient.&nbsp;So—it won’t be about “us” versus “them”, it will be about “me”. What is my role to make the world look more like God’s kingdom than mine? And how can I start living into that responsibility, starting Wednesday?&nbsp;Blessings, my friend,Agatha YES, It Is All About Me Agatha Nolen Download