If Elected…

Is America ready for a part-time pastor president?

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It might surprise you to learn that working as a Quaker pastor wasn’t my first choice vocation-wise. When I was growing up in Danville, Indiana, I wanted to be the president, like every kid I knew. I’ve spent a good part of my life thinking of the things I’d do if I were in charge of the country, so I’m ready for the task, should duty call, though I can’t imagine the circumstances that would compel a majority of Americans to think I was the answer to our nation’s problems. But if that’s my destiny, so be it.

Just to be clear, I’d only serve one term. When my four years were done, I’d slip out the door and never be heard from again. There’s a lot at our Indiana farm that needs doing, and I can’t do it if I’m hobnobbing with the muckety-mucks in Washington, D.C.

The first thing I’d do if elected president is keep my day job as a Quaker pastor. In a few more years, I’ll be fully vested in our pension plan, which pays close to $300 a month, which I’ll need since I won’t be one of those presidents making the chicken dinner speech circuit after I retire. I can either farm or give speeches, but I can’t do both.

Before you elect me, I should tell you my wife and I won’t be living at the White House. We have friends in D.C. who live a mile from the White House and have a perfectly good guest bedroom where we can stay. We don’t want to ramble around in a big, old house all by ourselves. Any house that requires a staff of 90 people is too much house for us.

We have one “staff member” at our house now. Her name is Crystal. She drives a school bus in our town and comes to our house the fourth Tuesday of every month to put things in order. My wife makes us clean the house the Monday before so Crystal won’t think we’re slobs.

Just so you know up front, I’d ask Martin Sheen to be my running mate. I’d let him live in the White House, since we won’t be using it. I know he’s an old white guy and Lord knows we’ve put enough of them in charge, but he was a president on TV, so he knows the ropes. If anything happened to me — if I got fed up and quit, for instance — I’m confident he’d make a fine president. In his seven years of playing a president on TV, I never heard the first complaint about him. Even my wife liked him, and she hates TV.

If elected, I’d be bringing some of my own people to Washington, mainly Crystal, to make our bed every morning. That’s my job at our house, and after 41 years of marriage, I’d like to roll out of bed knowing someone else would make it. There are teeth to brush, hair to shampoo, and breakfast to eat. I won’t have time to fool with a bed.

For that matter, I won’t be having state dinners either. I’m not in the restaurant business. There are lots of good places to eat in Washington, D.C., so I’m not inclined to entertain folks looking for a free meal. I realize these policies won’t make me popular with the upper crust, but so be it. I have a country to run, cows to milk, and turkeys to pardon. When I’m the president, the elites will have to fend for themselves.

 

Philip Gulley is a Quaker pastor and author of 22 books, including the Harmony and Hope series, featuring Sam Gardner.

This article is featured in the November/December 2024 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.

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