Once there was a new mother who sorted her child’s new toys.  Musical instruments went in one basket and cars went into another.  The child grew, and the number of toys grew as well, until all the vehicles no longer fit in one basket.  At that point, the mother separated the vehicles into two baskets, one for trains that went on a wooden track and the other for the rest of the vehicles.  The child continued to grow and acquire more and more vehicles.  For a while, everything fit well into the two categories.  Then, one day, the child received a set of cars designed for a wooden track.  According to the established sorting system, cars went in one basket, but the wooden rails were in another basket.  So, where did the cars that rode on the wooden track end up?

 

Well, like all time-saving mothers, this mother just made sure they went into one basket or the other so they weren’t hazards to feet.  At the same time, this was quite confusing for her toddler and preschooler who needed to match things in a very concrete way.  In the end, they embraced the haphazard way of sorting and kept the floor clean.

In this parable, the wooden track box and the vehicles box represent our country’s opposite political parties.  The mother could be anyone who needs to sort people into one category or another—the media, campaign advisers, politicians, advertisers, and more.  The sticky cars that ride on the wooden track are the “swing voters.”  They themselves have to pick the box that’s right for them personally.  The box could change daily, but the mother is just happy to have them decided and not underfoot.

If one uses the Bishops’ document “Forming Consciences”, it would be easy to find oneself stuck on the floor, put into one basket or the other on alternating days.  Say pro-life stances are in the vehicle box; Catholics will put themselves into the vehicle box.  Say social-welfare programs are in the wooden train box; Catholics will put themselves into the wooden train box.  Then there will be Catholics who decide that since they have characteristics of each box, they should just stay on the floor.  These are the non-voters who aren’t happy with their choices.   Now, this will anger the hypothetical mother because no one wants to step on a wooden vehicle.  In much the same way, many prefer to see the people of our country divided into two very limiting categories.  It is confusing to have to choose, just as confusing as it is for a toddler to choose between various characteristics of vehicles and sort them accordingly.  This is a higher-order thinking skill for anyone.  That is precisely why we have so many voters who feel torn, dragged in two separate directions.  No choice or box fits every car or person exactly.

So, what are the options for cleaning up?  Well, if the child accumulated enough cars that ride on a wooden track, the mother could opt to make a new box for these in-between vehicles.  In fact, perhaps the mother could also opt to sort the cars from the planes and the helicopters from the trucks.  This would be a more accurate sorting method.  It might make clean-up longer and harder, but it would be specific.  We, as Catholics, stuck sitting on the floor, are waiting for a new box, one that will encompass all of our attributes, so that we might feel secure and not second guess our choice of placement.