When I went to The White House Website shortly after the Inauguration of President Obama, I wept with tears of joy…
… and then I stood and sang our National Anthem (with the folks on the television) for the first time in about five years.
January 20, 2009
Hope.
In case you haven’t heard, today there’s a little ceremony going on in Washington, D.C. We call it an inauguration. Our new president is being sworn in. His name is Barack Obama.
For me, today ends eight years of a constant stream of “WTFs” when it comes to the leadership of the United States. In eight years I have been turned from a person that didn’t really pay much attention to politics to one that couldn’t help but notice what was going on and was subsequently infuriated repeatedly by “the Man”. It was during the last eight years that I stopped singing the National Anthem as a protest to where our country was headed. It was during these past eight years that I first considered becoming a citizen of another country.
I have hope that change begins today.
Do I think that our new President is the Messiah? I think he has a lot of great ideas, brings a positive light to a very negative place and will steer our country back where she used to be before (and I’ll say this part for the last time) “Bush Lite and his cast of idiots” got a hold of the reigns. Do I think we’ll do a 360 in a week? Of course not. President Obama has a huge task before him.
And I believe he’s up to the challenge.
I think one of the most beautiful things about today is that there really is a sense of hope among Americans. With some that hope is just a glimmer, with others it burns like a supernova. For me, well, I’d put my intensity somewhere around a bright light like they use to keep the fries warm at McDonalds. No matter how bright the light shines, the darkness of dread has been chased away by the light of hope.
And that can only be a good thing.
