I'm thrilled with the decision of my country. I have been worried about where we are going as a nation, what kind of a people we are collectively, and what our values are.
And how great is it to live in a time when a man who has been in the political arena for a very short time can get to the White House? And, as much as I try to leave race out of things, the fact that he is an African American makes it only that much more remarkable. I believe Dr. King would be thrilled. His dream is being realized.
I wonder if racial tensions within our country will lessen. Perhaps some of our brothers and sisters who are bigots will begin to see another way while he is president. Perhaps they will begin to see that Ghandi was right: we are all just children of the same God.
In 1989, as he left office, Ronald Reagan alluded to the "city upon a hill" in John Winthrop's treatise A Model of Christian Charity by saying, "In my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free prots that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still." I think that our city on the hill has been trying to hide itself to no avail. We are still watched, and the great American Experiment is not over yet. I have questioned its direction of late. That said, I think that with Mr. Obama's stated intentions regarding foreign policy, the doors that are now slammed, barred, and bolted in that city's walls may open again. They were slammed hard after 9/11, and I can understand that. I just don't see it now the way Reagan saw it when I was a child. I hope to see it change in that direction again while my children are growing up.
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