Having camped overnight many times over the years with my Eagle Scout sons, there is something heartwarming about waking up and seeing the sun come up, to warm the earth and your soul after a very cold, dark night. Waking up to the prospect of a new beginning, no matter what the night before has bestowed on you, the chills of the cold air, the strange sounds of the howling winds and exposed outdoors, the dark shadows that make you paranoid and seeing things.
In the past when our country was in crisis, such as the 9/11 attacks, the Oklahoma and Atlanta Olympic bombings, the Emanuel AME church shooting and most recently when we saw our own citizens assault the Capitol building with the sole intent of silencing the voice of the many for the idealistic rights of the few, we have always expected and relied on our leaders to rise up to the occasion and lead us out of the darkness. Even if it is a darkness that we, Americans, have ourselves created or made worse by the absolutely disastrous way we have behaved during this pandemic.
As I write this post, to lose more than 400,000 of our grandparents, parents, siblings, children, family members, all of them citizens and/or members of this incredible nation and not have leaders show empathy and unity that has inspired us to come together in the past and do what is right for one another is a national disgrace. To not be able to rely upon our elected leaders to amass the full power of our Federal Government, and guide us out of this never-ending darkness has been painful to experience and a crying shame.
Tonight, as I watched and cried during the memorial tribute lead by the upcoming administration, I was not thinking about how many of the white lights representing the 400,000 lives were republican or democrat but how we were all one and the same. The same members of this invincible nation that had suffered during past trauma and how for the first time in over 4 years, we will have the unified empathy of a nation, to come together and have hope that tomorrow, with the Morning Sun, we will be able to see the light that will take us out of this darkness we have been living through.
That the battle for the soul of our country has been won, by those that remember the dark days past and how we have been inspired to overcome the darkness of prior times. That we can rise up to the occasion, turn the corner, and be the beacon of light that America has been in the past not just to ourselves, but to the world.
For as it is so appropriately stated in our Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
God Bless America.
