On a recent sunny afternoon, after enjoying a couple of truly tasty ice cream cones, my 18-year-old nephew and I got into a conversation. A political documentary was playing in town; did he want to see it with me?

"Political, I don't like politics! Who cares about that stuff?" It was an answer I had heard too often lately.

Here was something we needed to talk about, and we did…all the way home. What we 21st century people have come to associate with politics has become so distasteful that his reaction was both expected and understandable, but it was also dangerous. Not liking something normally means we avoid it, but in the case of politics I believe we are called to do the opposite. It is because we don't like what politics has become that we must get involved.

I also know that this kind of reaction from young people (and not so young) comes from disillusionment. What we see and hear in the media leads us to assume that everyone in politics is corrupt, and every administration is just out to see how much they can get for their own special interests and big donor friends. We, the people, are just bystanders, my nephew told me, watching a struggle between those who want to get power so they can have a license to steal from the rest of us.

If it had been necessary for me to argue the reasons for civic responsibility in a purely secular way, I don't think I could have done it. Let's face it, if we look at the situation with just a "practical" human gaze, hopelessness may indeed be all we see. But, gracias a Dios, we are Christians, and Christians can and should avail ourselves of an entirely different way of seeing this.

"Do you believe in God?" I asked, knowing full well that the answer was yes. This was where we would begin.

If we believe in God, and if we believe in God's incarnation and dwelling among us in Jesus Christ, then we cannot for one minute think that God is indifferent to what happens to human beings and to creation. Everything around us, as broken and flawed as it often is, is loved by God. God's purpose was beautifully summarized by Jesus who told us, "I came so you may have life, and have it more abundantly."

"Do you think the universe is just a bunch of disconnected and chaotic accidents?" I asked him. No, he didn't; if he did he would be an atheist. Precisely! He had found the answer himself. The universe is God's and as such it has a plan.

Many theologians have spoken about how everything in the universe will one day return to God, all of creation folded back into God's embrace. What happens in human history, or even out in distant planets, is not chaos but, as science reveals, an intricately designed system of life that connects everything. Astronomers like reminding us that we are made of "star stuff," that our very molecules are part of the cosmos. Can we then afford to not care what happens to it?

This brought us to the question of evil. "There's no such thing as evil," my precocious nephew declared, "it is just the name we have given to the absence of God." Great answer, because, when we look at evil this way we can see God's power against it and ourselves called to make God present. "Doesn't this mean then that we have work to do? Political work?" We agreed. Nothing is "just politics;" the public space, our communal life, is too important for that.

But my nephew did have a point: The way politics is present in our contemporary life is alienating, and it can lull us into apathy. We Christians cannot see politics reduced to just political parties, flag waving and rigid agendas, rather we have to see politics as the "doing," the making possible, of a more just and equitable world, which is ultimately God's.

A few years ago I changed my voter registration to "Independent." It was my way of asserting that my allegiance belonged only to those in the political process who would work for the good of the world. A straight party line cannot reflect God's purposes. We need to be flexible. Politicians may use God's name, but unless we can discern how they will use the power given them to better all of humanity (not just "America's interests"), we will be manipulated into voting for a "name" and not for the purposes that must be accomplished.

Finally, we must keep something in mind: "Utopias" cannot exist on Earth, and anyone who promises to heal every social and economic evil we have with an excess of laws or an absence of them is lying. Christians know that living a just life is an ongoing struggle; that we work to make God present in our generation, and sow seeds in hope. We will never see these bloom in our own lifetimes, but that's okay. Christians need to be patient and steadfast with political processes, work for the larger picture and the long-term solutions, which come from changed and transformed hearts.

People often point to Jesus saying, "You will always have the poor with you" as an exhortation for us to accept poverty and strife in this life. I want to offer you a different interpretation:

I think the key words in this phrase are "always" and "with." Always, because being human will always necessarily involve confronting what is evil, what is wrong --- which poverty certainly is. We cannot rest on our small successes, we must keep the struggle (or, in Martin Luther King's words, "the dream") alive.

And, the most important word in this phrase "with," which loses some of its meaning in English, but which is quite a rich word. In Spanish the word for "with" is "con." When combined with certain endings it becomes a different word to designate our "being with," so "contigo" means "with you," and "conmigo" means "with me." One word, no longer two; I think that's what Jesus means, and I think that's what our involvement in politics has to be about.

We are one body, we are one creation, we are one in God. Everything we do has to be measured against that wider world of "others" out there who complete "us." Politics calls for our involvement on behalf of every "other" --- the poor, the elderly, the weak and the stranger who are part of "us" and who need our work on their/our behalf.

This November, my "independent" vote will be measured against the expectations of that God of love I believe in who created all of us and who is always conmigo.

Cecilia González-Andrieu writes from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.