OUR STAR-SPANGLED BANNER STILL WAVES, O'ER THE LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE BRAVE.
I don't know how all of you spent your day yesterday, but I spent mine watching the Presidential Inauguration from beginning to end. I was like the dimwitted Chauncy Gardener in Being There, a blissful idiot in pajamas and robe rapt with the sounds, imagery and pomp. I cheered and laughed and cried, taking in all the best that America and its citizens can be when there exists unity in purpose. I am not an ardent flag waving sort of person, but yesterday the energy of a nation so focused on and unified by shared ideals, values and responsibilities was palpable and simply spell-binding.
One God, one flag, one people. Like all inaugurals, the celebration yesterday renewed the promise of a new beginning, one filled with excitement and hope for better days ahead. But this one was undoubtedly special to me. It was Martin Luther King Day. Fifty years earlier, Dr. King stood before the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his "I Had a Dream Speech." Yesterday Dr. King's words and legacy charged the air with symbols so powerful that even Rep. John Lewis, Dr. King's friend and fellow Civil Rights activist, commented, "it was all I could do to hold back the tears (of joy)". I, too, was overcome with an emotion that I hadn't experienced since 1960 when this 12-year-old boy watched in black and white with the same rapt attention as one young John F. Kennedy raised his right hand and took the oath of office.
"ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU; ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY"
The phrase from that day, 53 years ago, and King's transcendent words three years later are forever stored among the treasures of my memory. Only Alzheimer's and death can take them from me. Even at 12, I felt the power of Kennedy's action call to transform a generation, my generation. Like then, throngs yesterday braved the chill on Martin Luther King Day to witness the inaugural ceremony and hear our President speak. What would he say, I wondered. In 53 years we as a nation are nearly as divided as we were when President Abraham Lincoln took his oath of office, March 4, 1861. Southern States began to secede and soon a civil war ensued.
We have taken so many detours as a people, I thought, recalling the lyrics of a country song, that even if we wanted to we could not find our way back to a time when there was discourse, civility and true bi-partiship on important national matters. Would we hear another "we must end the politics of division" speech? No. What we heard was a president demanding, as the Huffington Post later put it, that political divisions not be used as an excuse for inaction and that he, as President, would not tolerate a cynical status quo. He admonished us, and our political leaders by extension, to heed the imperative of action and inch our way to a more perfect Union by working in earnest on any number of critical issues at hand. Here's an excerpt:
"For now decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principal, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat named-calling as reasoned debate. We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today's victories will be only partial and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years, in forty years and four hundred years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall...What makes us exceptional - what makes us American - is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: ' We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with the same unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'. Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our times. For history tells us that, while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing".
The inauguration yesterday celebrated a united land of the free and the home of the brave. Let's not abandon our core value: One God; one flag; one people.
HOW DID YOU SPEND MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY?
Did any of you watch the Presidential Inauguration? Were any of you inspired by any particular event during the day and evening? I would love to read your stories, but please no division, no strife, no issues like gun control, political views that argue "I'm right, you're wrong. Shut up, stupid". Just share what yesterday meant to you. I'd like to know if I was the only human not in Washington who was profoundly moved.
One more thing. Two stunning musical performances from the steps of the Capitol yesterday are worth noting. American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson sang America the Beautiful and Beyonce , the National Anthem. If you didn't hear them, click on the links. The performances are there, submerged in a sea of inaugural photos. Both were unbelievable and worth the time spent searching for them. When I listened to the National Anthem, I was reminded of its origins in a poem entitled Defense of Fort McHenry, authored in 1814 by, you guessed it, Francis Scott Key. The little known poem is included here.
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