Gratitude Day #5

I decided to join Linda in a month of gratitude posts. I actually start and end my days with gratitude but it's kind of interesting and different to put things in writing.

Well, of course, I'm grateful that Barack Obama is president-elect, that this election is behind us and what feels to me like a more hopeful future lies ahead. I'm grateful that I live in a country where in the course of a very short span of time we could move the culture of our nation from one where we held black people as slaves to electing a black man as president. That is pretty awesome. We are a flawed nation (like all the others), but we are also a great nation. We lost our way for a while but I think we are on the road to not just an economic recovery - that's the least important aspect of the future - but a spiritual recovery. We have reclaimed our integrity.

In a smaller way, I'm grateful that I got one person I know to register for the first time in his life and to vote. I'm grateful that I got to hear the excitement in his voice that he had been part of something amazing and world changing. That was pretty cool.

I'm grateful for the bloggers (I won't list names because I'll forget someone and then I'll feel bad) who participated in discussion and debate over the past months. I'm even grateful for the people who disagreed with me but were willing to converse.

And I'm grateful to friends of mine and strangers who did what I can't do - who worked at the polling places, who campaigned and rang door bells and held gatherings in their homes, who did the leg work that got people interested and excited, who got people registered, who drove those who needed help to the polls.

I'm grateful that I live in a country where we have elections, where we have two parties. I think maybe we need to add some additional competition into that mix but that's a topic for another day.

One last think I'm grateful for. Eloquence. Some effort has been made to diminish Mr. Obama's eloquence as though eloquence is some kind of sham thing. Eloquence like Mr. Obama's, like Abraham Lincoln's, like Martin Luther King's... and like Mr. Obama's are powerful because they are eloquent not from the mouth, but from the heart. The power of Mr. Obama's speeches is not the words alone, but the brilliant mind and the heart that lies behind them. Mr. Obama is a man of peace to and from his core... and I mean peace in it's broadest sense, not just in the sense of ending wars, but in the sense of living from a place of love over hate. To quote him... he is a man who knows how "to disagree without being disagreeable." So I am grateful that he has the eloquence of words to reflect the eloquence of heart. I think he will be a healer for the nation and the world. That's a lot to put on one man's shoulders, but I think he can handle it.

And I've waxed wordy for long enough. You can now be grateful that I'm going to stop writing and post this.

One last thing. Tomorrow is the Blog Blast for Peace where bloggers from all over the world post under the banner of Dona Nobis Pacem. I hope you will all participate. Click on the banner below to find out more.

Let's Be FOR Obama, Not Against Palin

Well, it's Monday, which should mean The Alphabet Backwards for me... only the letters B and A left to go, but I think I want to write about something more important today.

Sometimes - it takes being reminded of something you know by someone else to really move your brain back into place. Michelle over at Full Soul Ahead did that for me yesterday. She reminded me of about The Law of Attraction and how this applies even in things like politics. The Law of Attraction basically says that (as the Hawaiian mystics put it) "energy flows where attention goes." I believe this and I try to remind myself of it regularly, but I'm as susceptible to psycho Republican games as anyone else and I fall off the Law of Attraction wagon a lot.

Sarah Palin is awful. She may be a nice woman. I'm not sure I think that. She's pretty nasty and comfortable with telling lies for a nice woman. I've done some reading on her. She's pretty comfortable with cronyism, calling people who don't agree with her "haters," secrecy (never a good sign that someone is on the up and up), religious fanaticism... a host of things that make me very uncomfortable. Here are some links that counter the media's bombardment of the air waves with how much everyone loves her.

The first is a blog called Women Against Sarah Palin. They apparently sent out an email on September 3rd requesting that women who weren't all thrilled with Mrs. Palin just because we share a gender with her, could share our thoughts as to why we think she wouldn't be such a good Vice President or President. As of yesterday when I went to the site, they had had over 100,000 responses. Then there's this article - called Alaska Women Reject Palin Rally is HUGE - I read it just before bed last night and it made me feel more hopeful again -

I have to toss this one more article - about at least one book Mrs. Palin did try to ban before she was mayor, while she was on the Wassila City Council.

Ok... got that out of my system. Thing is that creepy and whacky and uber-right wing as Sarah Palin is, her presence, the liberal (including mine) reaction to her, and the absurd press coverage, have totally obscured the actual main participants in the contest for President. We seem to be talking constantly and almost exclusively about Sarah Palin and very little about policy, John McCain, or - most importantly - Barack Obama. The Republicans, the media and liberals ourselves - have taken the wind from our own sails. We've stopped being for Obama and started being against Palin. If anything proves the principle of the Law of Attraction, the rise in the McCain/Palin poll numbers should do it. Let's get back to being FOR Senator Obama, the man who is FOR health care for all people, the man who wants to lower taxes on 90% of the population, the man who wants to restore diplomacy and peace, the man who wants to restore integrity and a respect for the law of the land, the man who won't find reasons to justify torture. Let's get back to being FOR hope instead of AGAINST creepy people unworthy of a moment's waste of breath, let alone high office.

I'm not saying that it isn't important to learn about Palin and to put as much information as possible about her out there. But let's get back to being FOR Barack Obama, for hope, for health care, for a balanced budget, for integrity, for women's rights, for sex education, for better schools, for the environment, for green jobs, for raising people up out of poverty. If we do that, what we are against will lose it's steam and it's power.

Even now, I have to fight my impulse to talk about what I don't want more of for my country. It's such an easy trap to fall into. The Republican machine has waved a shiny object in our own and the faces of it's own party - and we have all forgotten that this contest is between an aging former hero who has nothing to offer but more of the same and a young, vital, intelligent, creative, thoughtful, decent, honorable, passionate and compassionate man who offers not just hope, but true change for the better. Let's get back to being FOR him and attract him right into the White House.

I thought I'd repost my twin tanka's from yesterdays OSI post since they seem pertinent to the subject.

I'm FOR hope. I'm FOR change. I'm FOR peace. I'm FOR decency and integrity. I'm FOR Barack Obama.

I Love Barack Obama

Anyone who didn't listen to Barack Obama's speech tonight, should make it a point to find it and either watch or read it. This is a great man. He offers hope - but it isn't empty hope. It is promise, new ideas to revitalize and restore this nation's dignity and decency as well as our economy and our place in the world. Awesome.



I hate pundits. I think they are morons who love the sound of their own voices. I think I will turn the sound down and do something else instead of let them rain on the substance and genius of Mr. Obama's speech.