Faithful Citizenship in Pa's 1st Congressional District and the Central Garden State

As per Sister Mary Ann Walsh,

• "Serious people feel overwhelmed going into the 2012 election. Seeing many choices or none, some seek a rationale to stay home on Election Day, but to give in to such discouragement is political despair." 

Though Sister goes on to note that

• "Issues that directly affect innocent human lives, such as abortion and euthanasia, are primary and demand serious consideration,"

that clarity could be easily lost in the overall wordiness of her post.

• "People of conscience weigh key moral issues. They study and struggle with the questions at hand. They engage in a lifetime effort to develop the fine-tuned moral sensitivity needed to understand deeply Church teaching on critical issues." 

Is Sister inadvertently making the choices we face less clear, than they truly are?  Here's some alternative wording to consider:

"For this command which I am giving you today is not too wondrous or remote for you.

It is not in the heavens, that you should say, 'Who will go up to the heavens to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may do it?'

Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may do it?'

No, it is something very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.

See, I have today set before you life and good, death and evil.

If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I am giving you today, loving the LORD, your God, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and ordinances, you will live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

If, however, your heart turns away and you do not obey, but are led astray and bow down to other gods and serve them,

I tell you today that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land which you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live,

by loving the LORD, your God, obeying his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land which the LORD swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them."