Skip to main content

Long Time Coming.

Image
By
I know it's not over. I know that the hard job of governing the country has not yet begun, let alone the harder job of uniting a country divided by a long and polarizing campaign.

But I know, too, that I am not the only person out there who has been hearing, in Barack Obama's victory speech, echoes of an earlier speech:
We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!
As Obama said, it's been a long time coming. But I am more grateful than words can say that the time has finally come that an ancient promise to Americans has been kept.

So many have died to keep this dream alive.

May we all strive to be worthy of it, to live together in this day, at this time in history, to take hold of one another's hands and heal one another's wounds, and honor together those who have brought us this far.

No, it won't be easy. It never was. It never is. But we mustn't let that, or our cynicism and fear, keep us from moving toward healing and freedom together in love.

Let's try simply to be worthy of our times. Welcome to the Promised Land, brothers and sisters. Now let us go, and live together in it in peace.

Comments

pastrywitch said…
So mote it be. May those of us who've had our faith restored by these wonderful events keep it bright and shining through the times ahead.
8:21 AM
Anonymous said…
Beautifully said. Let us join together to move ahead, heal the wounds and live in the promise.
8:35 AM
deborahoak said…
yes. May the American Revolution continue on until ALL of us have our unalienable rights. I am proud now to be part of this revolution.
8:06 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fame

By
(Note: there were so many thought provoking comments in response to this post that it generated a second-round of ideas. You can read the follow-up post here .) I have a confession to make. I want to be famous. Well, sort of. I don't want to be famous, famous, and ride around in a limousine and have to hire security and that sort of thing. I just want to write a book, have it published by somebody other than my mother, and bought and read by somebody other than my mother, and maybe even sign a couple of autographs along the way. Mom can have one autographed, too, if she wants. It has to be a spiritual book. A really moving and truthful book, that makes people want to look deep inside themselves, and then they come up to me and say something like, "It was all because of that book you wrote! It changed my life!" And I would say, no, no, really, you did all that, you and God/the gods --I'm a little fuzzy on whether the life-changing book is for Pagans or for Quake
41 comments
Read more

Peter on Grief and Communities

By
Well, that was unexpected. For the last year, ever since my mom's health took a sharp downturn, I've been my dad's ride to Florence Congregational Church on Sundays. That community has been important for my dad and the weekly outing with me was something he always looked forward to and enjoyed, so I didn't mind taking him there. It meant giving up attending my own Quaker meeting for the duration, but I had already been questioning whether silent waiting worship was working for me. I was ready for a sabbatical. A month ago, my dad was Section-Twelved into a geriatric psych hospital when his dementia started to make him emotionally volatile. I had been visiting him every day at his assisted living facility which was right on my way home from work, but the hospital was almost an hour away. I didn't see him at all for three weeks, and when I did visit him there, it actually took me a couple of seconds to recognize him. He was slumped forward in a wheel chair, lo
4 comments
Read more

There is a Spirit Which I Feel

By
I was always a "rational use of force" gal. For most of my life I believed that the use of force--by which I meant human beings taking up arms and going off to war to try to kill one another--was a regrettable necessity. Sometimes I liked to imagine that Paganism held an alternative to that, particularly back in the day when I believed in that mythical past era of the peaceful, goddess-worshipping matriarchal societies . (I really liked that version of history, and was sorry when I stopped believing in it as factual.) But that way of seeing reality changed for me, in the time between one footfall and the next, on a sunny fall morning: September 11, 2001. I was already running late for work that day when the phone rang; my friend Abby was calling, to give me the news that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center in New York. So? I thought to myself, picturing a small private aircraft. Abby tried to convey some of what she was hearing--terrorists, fire--but the mag
22 comments
Read more