we the people

The past few days have been a perfect storm of emotions. I've also been thinking a lot about my dad, as he died on Jan 22, 2012.

Friday was inauguration day and I'm sick at heart that this is what our republic has chosen. I'm still confident that my father, a lifelong Republican and deeply decent man, would have found it abhorrent that this is the best candidate that his party could produce -- and that the American people fell for this man's "alternate facts." I had this on my mind as I drove my kids home from school. Lucia, my four-year-old daughter, was singing "This Land is Your Land," and my heart smiled at how her 60-something-year-old ex-hippie TK teacher, Ms. Baker, had incorporated the subversive messages of one of my favorite rabble rousers, Woody Guthrie, in the classroom. Lucia then piped up about the civics lesson Ms. Baker had taught that day. She excitedly told me about the Supreme Court and "the two Houses, I forget what they are called." Then, she floored me. She told me "President Trump is the boss, we are the big boss. We the people are his boss and decide if he keeps his job." The simple truth brought a smile to my face.

Saturday was a blend of exhilaration and relief, as the kids, Leo, and I all participated in the Women's March. We opted to participate with the kids, in spite of warnings about provocateurs, but stuck to the edge of the crowd, made sure each child knew to find a mommy if s/he got lost, and had our phone numbers inside their clothing. In the end, it was a beautiful day, despite the rain. The parade ended with the kids playing in the park with hundreds of other children, including the two other families that joined us at the parade. It felt really wonderful to spend the day with our friends and 40,000 other San Diegans, and to come away with a renewed sense of hope after an electoral season that left me jaded and disheartened. Although I know my dad wouldn't have marched with us, family was in the mix as I saw photos of my sister, her in-laws, and extended family all marching in their respective cities.

Sunday was spent helping Sebastian get his visual aids together for his first oral presentation. He's a shy kid and was dreading this in a big way. After a few tantrums this weekend, he finally collapsed in a sobbing heap after confessing "I'm too shy to do this!" I felt like sobbing, too. But once I asked if he wanted my help to do well on it, he got excited to work on it, to go the library and get pictures to copy, and to make his presentation board. It was incredibly gratifying to see him get very comfortable after practicing his 60-second speech on trains about 5 or 6 times that day. By the end, he had great eye contact, incorporated the visual aids nicely, and used vocal variety. More importantly, by Monday morning, he was confident and excited to give his speech to his classmates.

Today, Lucia brought home some school drawings she made last week and today. I was so moved by the "This land is made for We the People!" drawing below that I teared up, having a private, maudlin moment of wonder and gratitude. Gratitude for her honest heart, for her old hippie teacher who cultivates her mind and sense of justice, and for her belief that her land is as beautifully multicultural as her classroom is. I'm certain my dad would also share my sense of pride in this fact. I'm confident because his highest compliment to me at my wedding reception was a speech where he shared how proud he was of the woman I'd become and the diverse friends I'd surrounded myself with -- a sea of rainbow faces, my lesbian friends jitterbugging on the dance floor, and my own choice of a partner with a background so different than my own.  Yes, I'm sure that Popi would also have found himself with misty eyes if he were to have seen Lucia's drawing.

soccer dreams in a floating village

How these boys living in a *floating* village went from being soccer fans to becoming a football club is so inspiring. Whatever challenges you face in life, if you think you can make a difference, you can.

quotable

"Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it." ~ Bill Cosby

quotable

"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

the best prayer nobody heard

Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson is the first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained a bishop in a major Christian denomination.

He gave the invocation at Sunday's "We Are One" concert, kicking off this week's inaugural events. The big Lincoln Memorial show was billed as the "We Are One" concert, intended to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama with a spirit of unity. But his prayer was excluded from HBO's coverage.

Here is his awesome prayer.

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama
By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Opening Inaugural Event: Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

mission accomplished

I can't remember the last time I watched an inauguration. That's because, until yesterday, I never had.

I and about 150 of my colleagues sat in the cafeteria and watched as history was made, agendas were outlined, and hope was personified. I've never been prouder to be an American than I was yesterday.

Op-Ed Columnist
Radical in the White House
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: January 20, 2009

For one day, for one hour, let us take a bow as a country. Nearly 233 years after our founding, 144 years after the close of our Civil War and 46 years after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, this crazy quilt of immigrants called Americans finally elected a black man, Barack Hussein Obama, as president. Walking back from the inauguration, I saw an African-American street vendor wearing a home-stenciled T-shirt that pretty well captured the moment — and then some. It said: “Mission Accomplished.”

But we cannot let this be the last mold we break, let alone the last big mission we accomplish. Now that we have overcome biography, we need to write some new history — one that will reboot, revive and reinvigorate America. That, for me, was the essence of Obama’s inaugural speech and I hope we — and he — are really up to it.

Indeed, dare I say, I hope Obama really has been palling around all these years with that old Chicago radical Bill Ayers. I hope Obama really is a closet radical.

Not radical left or right, just a radical, because this is a radical moment. It is a moment for radical departures from business as usual in so many areas. We can’t thrive as a country any longer by coasting on our reputation, by postponing solutions to every big problem that might involve some pain and by telling ourselves that dramatic new initiatives — like a gasoline tax, national health care or banking reform — are too hard or “off the table.” So my most fervent hope about President Obama is that he will be as radical as this moment — that he will put everything on the table.

Opportunities for bold initiatives and truly new beginnings are rare in our system — in part because of the sheer inertia and stalemate designed into our Constitution, with its deliberate separation of powers, and in part because of the way lobbying money, a 24-hour news cycle and a permanent presidential campaign all conspire to paralyze big changes.

“The system is built for stalemate,” said Michael J. Sandel, the Harvard University political theorist. “In ordinary times, the energy and dynamism of American life reside in the economy and society, and people view government with suspicion or indifference. But in times of national crisis, Americans look to government to solve fundamental problems that affect them directly. These are the times when presidents can do big things. These moments are rare. But they offer the occasion for the kind of leadership that can recast the political landscape, and redefine the terms of political argument for a generation.”

In the 1930s, the Great Depression enabled Franklin Roosevelt to launch the New Deal and redefine the role of the federal government, he added, while in the 1960s, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and “the moral ferment of the civil rights movement” enabled Lyndon Johnson to enact his Great Society agenda, including Medicare, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

“These presidencies did more than enact new laws and programs,” concluded Sandel. “They rewrote the social contract, and redefined what it means to be a citizen. Obama’s moment, and his presidency, could be that consequential.”

George W. Bush completely squandered his post-9/11 moment to summon the country to a dramatic new rebuilding at home. This has left us in some very deep holes. These holes — and the broad awareness that we are at the bottom of them — is what makes this a radical moment, calling for radical departures from business as usual, led by Washington.

That is why this voter is hoping Obama will swing for the fences. But he also has to remember to run the bases. George Bush swung for some fences, but he often failed at the most basic element of leadership — competent management and follow-through.

President Obama will have to decide just how many fences he can swing for at one time: grand bargains on entitlement and immigration reform? A national health care system? A new clean-energy infrastructure? The nationalization and repair of our banking system? Will it be all or one? Some now and some later? It is too soon to say.

But I do know this: while a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, so too is a great politician, with a natural gift for oratory, a rare knack for bringing people together, and a nation, particularly its youth, ready to be summoned and to serve.

So, in sum, while it is impossible to exaggerate what a radical departure it is from our past that we have inaugurated a black man as president, it is equally impossible to exaggerate how much our future depends on a radical departure from our present. As Obama himself declared from the Capitol steps: “Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed.”

We need to get back to work on our country and our planet in wholly new ways. The hour is late, the project couldn’t be harder, the stakes couldn’t be higher, the payoff couldn’t be greater.