The family and I watched the inauguration with excitement this morning. 8:30 a.m. on the Pacific coast. Jess said as we woke him up, “It feels like Christmas!” I had to agree…the anticipation and exhilaration of this day feels like all goodness to me.
Hearing Obama speak has been such a learning experience for me; I am aware now that I am a serious patriot of the original intent of our country. I have always known this to be true to some degree, but have a fuller awareness of this now.
Perhaps my earliest recall of doing anything remotely political in nature is sitting in my grandparents’ living room in Charlotte at the age of 7 with my Aunt Wendy, who played the Fifth Dimension’s 1970 Medley: The Declaration / A Change Is Gonna Come-People Gotta Be Free, a song that puts a section of the U.S. Constitution to melody. She played it over and over again until I memorized it and was able to sing along without looking at the words. It instilled in me a deep and passionate understanding of those words that have continued to inspire me to this day. Thank you, Wendy!
As a fifth grader, my class embarked on a field trip to a fort on the coast Wilmington, NC; there as we toured the swamp beyond the fort, I had a spontaneous experience of being a soldier, dying on the ground in my Revolutionary War uniform. The feeling I had along with this surprising vision was one of pride, sadness, confusion, and being willing to die for what was right in my heart. That was the same year I developed a sudden interest in the presidential race and campaigned heartily for Jimmy Carter, even growing peanuts in a little terracotta pot on the kitchen windowsill as a show of support.
When I was in seventh grade, I won an award for an essay that I wrote on “Why I am Proud to be an American”. The writing was informed by an idealistic child’s understanding, but it came from a genuine and pure love of the ideals this country was founded upon. I remember flushing with pleasure when my seventh grade social studies class jumped to their feet in standing ovation when I read it aloud. Apparently I’d struck a nerve.
As an adult, my idealism has been worn down into a feeling of being jaded; my observation is that most Americans don’t think very much about the outrageous courage it took for those rebels to break away from England, and to be so very committed to their vision and true to their hearts, they were willing to risk everything. I have not seen that most Americans, even in their robotic shuffle to the voting booth, understand the gravity of their ability to choose a leader in a peaceful manner. “Are they thinking about anyone but themselves?” I would wonder. “Are they thinking about the good of the whole?”
I took to carrying a copy of the Constitution in my purse a few years ago. I think it was in part due to my wanting to keep it closer to my consciousness, and in part to bring it out in case I was confronted by someone who did not value my right to free speech or to believe as I do. Kind of a back-up. I have felt threatened by our country’s past leadership, plain and simple. I have felt my hope for a brighter future for my children dwindle with each passing year. I have felt that I would need to take matters into my own hands in order to defend the liberties my forefathers and foremothers so bravely fought for. I have felt an unnamable grief, one that has come to the surface now that that era is over (read more about that here).
I feel differently now. My family and I watched the election among the company of new friends in our new location here in San Luis Obispo…the feeling of Obama being elected was like a dream come true for so many of us. How many years have we hoped and prayed and wished for the leader at the top of our nation to shine? How many years have we hoped for equality for all races, all religions, all beliefs? How long have we felt injustice and unfairness and known it could be different? It is almost as if many of us were encoded with this data, the data that would bring change to the world and launch it into its new era.
I LOVE that our new president is so well versed in the Constitution. The highest intention of our country, the principles it was founded upon….what other ideals would we want for a leader, whose sacred task is to hold true to the vision that caused this country to be born in the first place?
Well, Obama said more than once in his inauguration speech that we are entering a New Age. I feel that to be true. We were so inspired this morning that my family had a little ceremony in which we chose to consciously align in the new administration’s efforts. We asked to know how we can be of service to the noble goals of Obama’s leadership, to be shown the ways we can assist the Whole of our country to be the sparkling model of freedom that it can be.
