At 1:30 am this morning, I watched President Elect Barack Obama's acceptance speech to the office of President of The United States of America and thought of my two children asleep in the dark. Unable to go to sleep, I wrote the following to them:
Dear Jed and Ruby,
After months of explaining to you both how Democracy works in America, I am sitting in our house watching history play out as you both sleep upstairs. And for the first time in a very long time, I am hopeful and inspired.
There are those who would tell you today that the elevated rhetoric of this man we elected amounts to little more than pretty words and goosebumps. I would remind them that every significant step taken forward in this country, from the very formation of this nation to the fight for civil rights for all citizens, began with a vision and with the rallying cry of those who believed in the same fundamental ideals. Without that, we are nothing. I pray that in your lives, you will both have many opportunities to feel as though you are a part of something bigger than yourselves, that you will be inspired to learn and grow and change this world and to be inspirations to other people.
Like both your father and I, you have been blessed with great opportunity. You were born to educated, free people of means. You were born citizens of America. You were handed that gift on the day you were born. There are those who will tell you your luck was God's will, that those who were not so fortunate are somehow deserving of their lesser lot in life. Some may have you believe that you need to only look out for yourself in this world and not be concerned with how others fare.
As your mother, I would tell you that my singular goal for you is to understand and embrace the notion that with such great blessings comes great responsibility. As a citizen of this country, as a child of God and a resident of this world, I firmly believe that we all have the responsibility and the great privilege of looking out for one another, of respecting one another, of doing everything we can to make sure that everyone else can be their very best. It is only in this way that you will ever find the best of yourselves. This world does not belong to you. It belongs to all of us and we are all connected. My prayer for you is that you will always feel tied to the bigger force that binds us all. Call it God, call it Love, call it Community, call it Family. It's all the same force and it is what sustains us and enables us to change ourselves one individual at a time and, subsequently, the world.
There are those who will continually yell, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" Those who will always think what they have matters more than who they are. There are those who would be very angered by the notion that they are in any way responsible for complete strangers whose decisions they can't control. But I believe the only progress we can make as a nation and as individuals is with the support and encouragement of one another. This is how your father and I have taught you that we are in our own family. The very same principles apply outside of our home. To exclude certain people or groups of people, to insist that we are better or more deserving of the blessings of this world is the worst kind of hubris and only sets us up to isolate ourselves and fail.
I am so thankful at the thought that neither of you will know the limits that have been placed on certain people in this country. You will likely never know poverty nor will you be denied your fundamental rights to participate as a free citizen of this country. Because of the tireless efforts of very brave people who came before you, you can live and prosper in a country where we have possibilities that some people didn't have as recently as one generation ago. I am thankful that there are many struggles you will never have to endure; battles that were fought and won before you were even born.
But there will be other battles. I was quite pregnant with you, Jed, on the morning of 9/11 as I watched in horror the events of that day. I sat there thinking of the world I would be bringing you into and wondering what my place in it was. I wondered how I could keep you safe and how on earth I might have the strength of character to instill in you the courage and fortitude to be a real agent of change in your world. This prayer is my greatest hope for both of you.
This country moves and changes in small steps, as it should. Our new President is charged with a formidable task ahead of him as all presidents before him have been. I am not naive to think that one man can be elected and the enormity of our problems will magically disappear. Christ, himself, could be sworn in on January 20th and that will not be the case. That change is up to us. Each one of us.
What I do believe, however, is in the overwhelming and undeniable power of hope. I believe in the fundamental notion that you have a voice, that you matter, that you are significant, that you can affect change, that everyone you touch matters, and that it is these ideals that make us most powerfully human.
Love,
Mommy
