How I Feel about 'Merkah

So I was asked, for this job that I'm applying for to "write a one page essay about how I feel about America". Apparently its for this private school that has an "America-centric curriculum" and I guess they wanted to make sure that I'm not a dirty hippy.

Mom said that I should post my reply on my blog.

Here it is:

Life is a series of binaries, melodies and countermelodies of every kind. The governing one in a life is the space we try to live balancing our dreams and our realities. Both sides have claim on our mind, hearts and energies so we find ourselves in this space between, living in this benevolent, delicious and adventurous polarity.

This is what America is to me. It’s a crossroads of ideals, brilliance, energy and love mixed with a lot of blood, sweat, tears, pain, and hard work. There is a magic to this place. It’s an accessible magic ironically being the basic concept of space. There is space here. There is the obvious physical space but there is also emotional space, there is political space, there is intellectual space, there is spiritual space and there is enough for everyone.

The word I use for this is Liberty. We have a statue of it, a bell, the word peppers every founding document but I often wonder if it’s worth is really known. Many have sacrificed comfort, safety, families and even lives for it. It’s that costly because it’s that important and its what makes America truly great. Not Freedom, but Liberty. I think the two are very different.

Freedom, to me, is simply the state of being free from oppression from a malevolent source but Liberty is far more pointed and ennobled than that. Liberty is the chance to choose, to live a deliberate life, to have ownership over yourself and your future and in a beautiful dichotomy, those that were so ardently concerned about their welfare were motivated by true philanthropy. They loved themselves enough to fight for their rights in founding a new nation but they had a greater commitment to those that would come later and felt they deserved the same chance. That is a rare gift and one I marvel at everyday.

Because of this working reality of Liberty and Love I have hope everyday. I can feasibly hope and imagine changing whatever there is about my life and situation that I want to. I live and breathe the possible. There are few places where that is possible but here, it’s an everyday.

These everydays and the subsequent space they provide has led to everything else that I adore about America. We are an amalgamation of people from every corner of the planet that grew up one way but hungered for another. They were and are people with an instinct for justice, of brave souls. In turn we have grown up sons and daughters of heroes. We are a whole nation of fighters. Its no wonder the comic book was invented here, the car, the aircraft, the Internet. We’re all still exploring our world and trying to be the heroes of our own lives.

Naturally with so much strength we are constantly fighting for ourselves and sometimes with ourselves, but when called upon we boast some of the most courageous blood in the world and when we work together, nothing is impossible. The line between dreams and realities disappears. We’ve proven that to the world and ourselves again and again.

There is always a chance. There is always a way and most importantly there was someone who came before me that loved a faceless stranger enough to provide a way for me to find my own.

Putting Away Childish Things

A retrospective on Presidential Inaugurations

I don't talk about my mission too much on here. Maybe I'll get on a rope or two if we're actually chatting but my heart is so full of memory and hope and perspective today that I just can't help it.

I served 18 months in Washington DC. I saw those memorials and that river every day for 18 months and those images are inseparably connected to the deepest convictions of Faith and Love I have in my soul. I can't tell you what it was like standing shoulder to shoulder with people leading and protecting the Free World with my little black name tag on serving with everything I had too, but just a little differently. The seat of world power was blocks away but the power to change lives was in my hands. Everyday I mused on that delicate juxtaposition, on the difference between the senator's Lincoln next to my Missionary Escort in traffic and what it meant. What the concept of home is and how hard you work for it to protect it and share it.

In turn, my patriotism is a blue flame along side the white one of my faith. I cannot see one without the other. So today, seeing those people and hearing those words again touched deep places in me.

I was there at the last one.

I was there during the initial chaos after the aftermath of the election. A group of the Sister Missionaries had inadvertently gotten a group together to go visit the Pentagon the day after the election and got an acted out play-by-play of the previous night's antics from obliging Marine waiting to give the next tour since we didn't have a clue as to what was going on.

For the next few weeks we glanced at headlines to see if they had figured it out yet but the unsettled and annoyed feeling that a fumbled election can create permeated the entire capital. It was a potent, slow crescendo of angst and fear all the way to Inauguration Day. When they day finally came it was psycho bitter cold. Like 10 degrees and 90% humidity with a threat of freezing rain. They almost canceled the ceremonies twice. My mission president gave us leave to attend if we wanted to. My companion didn't want to go and neither did my roommate so I grabbed my other roommate and we found the nearest metro and set out.

We don't get out too much as missionaries but enough to know what things are usually like and enough to know that today was different. I didn't carry any heavy opinions about Bush or the fiasco that had followed election day. I was just really glad to be a part of something this big but the people on the packed metro didn't feel the same. They were quiet. And not the content quiet, oh no. It was the angry and deep thinking quiet.

Things continued to get more and more eerie as we made our way to the Mall area. There were more protesters there than participants and not kind of silly loud jovial protesters, these were people with who had painted their faces black and held angry angry signs.

Now imagine, milling through all these charged people were these Texas fat cats. Middle aged rounded men in leather trench coats with gold tipped vanity canes, eel skin boots, and fine leather 10 gallon hats strutting through the crowd like peacocks. It was almost as if they were surveying some conquered new acquisition. It was so mind numbingly cold that all I really can draw from memory are images. They, and the overwhelming feelings permeating everything was all that stuck. Most of my energy that days was focused on keeping warm and not complaining about it. There wasn't much left to really soak in what all these people and things meant. Only the eeriness and stark contrast of the kinds of people around that day remain and it still feels like yesterday.

We layered up as best we could be we still were in our missionary skirts and nylons. I had my pea coat and a hat and scarf and 2 pairs of long johns on as well but wet cold knows no boundaries.

We stood there for the whole hour and a half service and clapped and sang and prayed with our new President and when it was over we started to walk away but my legs gave because they had become numb from the knees on down. We staggered over to the National Gallery to warm up and digest what had just happened and got on the metro and were home by 11. We took pictures by the CNN jumbo screen and all that but that day has haunted me more than I think I realize.

So flash forward to Jan 20th, 2009:

Today was huge in my house. I know that I'm not bashful with my political leanings but I know some people are so I don't touch on it too often to be respectful but I would like to take a moment and reflect and explain why today was a Today.

My mother was a dedicated Civil Rights mover and shaker in her time. She held her signs and sang her folk music and sat in with all that her huge heart could muster. Its a dedication that she's handed off to us. She called me up crying on election night when I was at Institute and could only say "we did it" through her tears.

Just last week she came into my room weeping because it had hit her for the 3rd or 4th time that a good man, a strong man, a hopeful and bright man who was also a black man was taking office. This was a win that my mother has been aching for for 40 years. A real hard copy of the social evolution she devoted most of her early life to. Civil Rights was part of how my mother has observed her faith testimony so today was holy day seeing that wrong made right and I cried with her. I kept reminding her we're only half way there and she smiled and laughed but the sentiment remains the same I think.

Experiencing 1.20.09 with my mom was rare. Her life experience and mine combined in the same room and sharing the same box of kleenex but for different reasons was singular.

On the TV I saw miles and miles of people, packed to the gills in the freezing weather happy and hopeful. When I was there there was extra room in the Mall. I saw a sunny beautiful day with hopeful blue skies, not threatening freezing rain. I saw people bowed in prayer not being knocked over by people walking away as my head was bowed too. I saw a whole different America with a whole different attitude.

I would like to thank Mr. Bush in my really little way for his work. I don't know the man at all but he was my President and that is not an easy thing to be. But its something he did for 8 years after an insane life and I thank him for fulfilling his oath the best way he knew how. I truly wish him well and hope he has the peace hes been chasing after all these years.

1.20.09 has reminded me of a few things too.

Like every American, I've always craved a large life.

I wanted see huge significant things and think profound lasting thoughts and feel all encompassing feelings and do significant, lasting things. I want my life and the lines on my hands to mean something, not just be something.

I want to speak to 1000s of people at a time and feel the earth moving beneath my feet and see hearts stirring in the eyes of the people I meet. I want to stand for ideas and things that are bigger than me. Like Love and Work and God and Hope. I want to have stories and battle scars. My dream was to be a modern day Spartan. To be that good. To be that tough. To be that committed to what I love.

And on Inauguration Day, for a brief second, maybe even a few, seeing that empowered fleet people I felt apart of something bigger - I felt like I was. Like I did. Like I am.