I hear that there is far less religion in this year’s election–in part because the people who really care about the religion of a candidate … don’t have a candidate that they consider one of their own. This is a problem with perspective; from my perspective, there has been more than enough religion in this election cycle.

It’s also coming up on Halloween, and once again the meteorologists are trying to frighten us. Apparently, there’s a hurricane threatening to cut our power just when the little ghouls and goblins would be going door-to-door. Which, strangely enough, is exactly what happened last year. And, last year, while the power was off, by candlelight, I wrote the following:

Jesus came back from the dead tonight
(He said he had done it before)
He took to the streets in the Bible Belt
With the children in masks, door to door.

With pirates, and goblins, and heroes, and ghosts
Came the Savior, the true child of God
On the streets where the Christian majority lives
It was more than a little bit odd:

Wherever they stopped, the people would guess
(Cos that’s what the homeowner does)
Though Jesus was Jesus, and not in disguise
Not one of them knew who He was.

The Jesus they know is the one they created,
Who thinks like, and looks like, themselves
Whose stories they hear in their sermons, but not
In the bibles that sit on their shelves.

If Jesus existed, if Jesus was real,
If He died on the cross for our sins
He wouldn’t want gays to be punished for love
Or care if a Democrat wins.

He wouldn’t want lies taught to children in school;
He wouldn’t want homeless to freeze
The weakest and weariest crying for help
In a system that’s deaf to their pleas

I worry, you know, for the Christian Right—
And (of course) for the human race—
When Jesus himself goes from door to door
And no one knows his face