A New Dawn

I bet there are a lot of people who can't NOT WRITE - blog, email, letters, whatever - at a moment such as this.

Never have I been moved to tears of joy by an election. I've felt emotional, on the positive and negative side, depending on the election. But this brings up hope, love, and allowing ourselves to invest in a leader again. To feel something for a stranger - for a man we'll likely never meet.

I watched and listened to Barack Obama last night as he delivered his acceptance speech. The way he included us, included ALL OF US - especially those who didn't vote for him. He said 'I'm your president too' and said he'd do his best to represent all our interests. He urged us to come together, but mostly, he allowed us to remember what it's like to believe that is even possible. He's taken the most fractured nation and invited us to mend our wound as a people, as a country. He uses togetherness, instead of separateness - to govern, to heal.

We've been used to 8 years of the darkest form of governing possible. Fear tactics, lies, playing on differences among people to breed more fear. It's sick. We've been sick as a nation because of it. And here we've elected the right doctor to help us heal ourselves. He's inviting us to. That is reason alone for hope. We were able to make a healthy choice; we were offered an opportunity for change and responsibility and we recognized it and took advantage of that opportunity.

I've cried and cried to be able, to be given permission, to hope like this. But it's also scary to hope, to trust again in some ways, because what if this is taken from us? I'm not alone in my worry that certain diseased people will, out of fear of change, seek to obliterate that possibility. What can we learn from what Barack Obama is inviting us to do? He's teaching us how to hope again, to involve ourselves again, to take individual responsibility for participating in a nation that we create and nourish together. The gem of his guidance is that the world can be what we dare to dream and work for.

I'm off to a day in the new world today.