Grace-full

Elizabeth Edwards gave a wonderful gift to the country last week. Faith and courage, awareness of Grace.

The wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, Elizabeth is likely dying of metastasized breast cancer. She is handling it better than most of us.

In an interview with Newsweek, (read it here) she talked about God and dying.

“I had to accept that my God was a God who promised enlightenment and salvation. And that's all. Didn't promise us protection.”

It is remarkable when you look at Hillary and McCain, Rudy and Kerry and the others, how different they are from Elizabeth Edwards, her husband John. There is a reality missing from the others, like “everything they say was written down before they said it.” I don’t know yet about Obama.

But in the reality distortion field that is national (and more frequently Oregon) politics, the bitter Right Wing are wringing their hands and complaining that the Edwards’ should hunker down at home with their children and prepare to meet a fearsome God. What brass! They would tell us how to live, when to die, who to love!

But Elizabeth has an answer for them:

“There's going to be a day before each of us die, and you have to think a little bit about how you want that day filled. Maybe when you're doing that judging thing, think about how you want the day before you die to look. I want that to be a productive day about which I am enormously proud, as opposed to a day where I had the covers pulled up over my head. That's unbelievably important to me. And if somebody is judging me, and doesn't hear me say that, maybe it's partly my fault for not saying it clearly and maybe it's their fault for not thinking about it.”

I think the likelihood that John Edwards will be our next president is quite small. The gnashing teeth of the grinding machine that is power politics in this country will take its due, and mediocrity will, again, be the outcome of a process that forces us to vote against, not for.

But thanks to the Edwards, we will have seen something lovely and strong, a couple of true faith facing their trials with grace, passion and integrity.