Loading ...I had a chance to watch some of the inauguration clips and most especially Obama’s inauguration speech, and I just feel such a great swell of American pride that I’ve never felt before.
Oh, sure, I appreciate how lucky I am to have been born in America. It’s a gratitude I consciously think about and appreciate constantly. But I’ve never felt it in this way, a way that I can’t quite describe.
I’ve watched inaugurations and the changing of the guard before. Sometimes with great happiness. Other times with extreme disappointment. I don’t know if it’s being in Europe. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older and maturing in my understanding and interest in politics or what.
But it just feels so different this time. Maybe I’m simply getting caught up in the group think. But I don’t think so. I think there is something truly different and special about Obama’s presidency and I am so looking forward to watching things unfold, being part of those things. I think we are in store for lots of good and goodness!
One thing I really loved about his speech was not just the inspiration of it. Hope and optimism are ingredients that we all need. But they aren’t the only nutrients we need. Nothing is healthy without balance and wholeness, and that includes not only allowing hope and optimism to buoy us, but also being open to taking a good hard look in the mirror and acknowledging not-so-pretty realities.
Inspiration can become like candy to children. And people can be easily fed and led into unconsciousness by the sugarcoating and BS of “inspirational” things; by telling folks what they want to hear instead of the truth; by only looking at the “pretty” things, the “positive” things and not the whole, the real picture.
They abdicate then both their responsibility for the way things are and their freedom to change those things. They are lulled into complacency, a childishness where someone else makes the decisions, calls the shots and takes care of things.
So what I also loved about his speech is that not only was it hopeful and inclusive of all races, all creeds, all religions (including non-believers, which in itself is remarkable)–and we need that after these past eight years–but it also reminds us of the opportunity to take back ownership of our country in its fullness, with all its warts AND all its goodness and promise, by asking each and every one of us to take responsibility. It’s not someone else’s job, someone else’s responsibility. It’s OURS. Each and every one of us.
That is a gift, my friends, one we should never take for granted.
