Necessity is the mother of invention.
I’m thinking on the street level…my street. When the economy is bad and people don’t have the resources to throw money at a problem, to just run or move away, they are forced to stay where they are and figure out how to make it work.
One way to make it work is for us to figure out how to get along. Along the way of getting along some of us find we have things in common. Finding common ground makes us move beyond mere tolerance to definite understanding. Understanding means that you begin to matter to me and I begin to matter to you. We see that we are linked to each other.
One house that has been unsold on my street for a little over two years, sold a few weeks back. (Yippee!) A few other houses have owners that have removed the “for sale” signs and have been forced to stay put. This means our multicultural street, in fact our multicultural neighborhood, is staying multicultural with a mixture of Whites, Blacks, Vietnamese, and Latino people. We are learning to get along and some of us are actually becoming neighborly. There’s no place to run and no where to hide.
Walking Taller
My Black son (who my daughter reminds me is “quarter-rican” like she is), has called me several times in the last two days to just talk about the election. I can feel his enthusiasm and wonder at this election. “Ma,” he said in today’s call. “I feel more buoyant than I have in some time. Every Black man I know is walking prouder. I truly feel that I can pursue my dreams. Yes I can. I didn’t realize I needed this validation until it happened.”
Even Positive Change is Scary
Change, even change you’ve hoped for, prayed for, and worked for is scary and difficult. We are now in the territory of the unknown, sailing in uncharted waters. What will happen? None of us know. We can think of what might happen and that usually takes us to bad things but I’m not going there. I’m going to hold on and walk with this positive change!
The Darkest Hour is Just Before the Dawn
Things have to get bad before they get better. When things get really bad, that’s when values become clear, that’s when we have to get right down to the real nitty-gritty, that’s when we learn what we’re made of. When things are dismal we are forced to try new things and to remember forgotten ways.
Pulling Together
In the past year I have been experiencing my own personal renaissance, renewal, reaching out with caring and peace to other people. I also feel this gathering, coalescing in many other people around me. We are stopping to have more meaningful conversations. We are finding time to spend together. We are reconnecting. We are letting bygones be bygones. I have a feeling that faith and trust and hard work is going to be required of all of us in the coming days and that we’ll need each other more than ever.
Saying Yes to Yourself
President-elect Obama said yes to himself when others were discouraging. He had a big dream and he dared to dream it and pursue it. He took a calculated gamble on himself and brought others into his vision. In so doing, he encourages all of us to pursue our dreams as well.
Smarts, Savvy and Working together
This is an incredible combination. Unbeatable it turns out.
Throw the Net Widely
Being inclusive, reaching out to everyone made this change happen.
Everything will Change, nothing stays the same.
When it’s the time, it’s the time.
What a great time to be an American on the precipice of an incredible change led by a visionary leader but requiring all of us to work together to realize our collective and individual dreams.
Say Amen somebody. A-MEN!
AMEN…I’ve been saying amen and I’ll say it again. AMEN. Of course there’s the next step and pulling together is incredibly important, but so is the new found freedom to respectfully disagree, which is a byproduct of pulling together.
Hi Candelaria, I enjoyed your blog which I read today for the first time. Hooray for our country with this historic election. I certainly hope that our society will change in a positive way. Change is inevitable and somewhat scary for most of us; but it often brings such wonders to our lives, if we let it.
How right you are! Beautiful post, Candelaria!
I cried tears of joy when it was announced that Obama won! I believe that for most of us it was very much a journey in a direction that has been a long time coming. FINALLY! We’ve arrived and hope has been restored to the American people. I feel this must have been what our nation felt like when Kennedy was president.
This was the first time for my son to vote. I felt the same joy that I did on his first day of school. We watched the debates and followed the progress, etc. It was more than checking a box on a ballot. It was personal, meaningful, so very important to our country to our families our lives. For the first time I really felt like our vote counted.
As you said, AMEN!
Wow!, this was a real quality post. In theory I’d like to write like this too – taking time and real effort to make a good article… but what can I say… I keep putting it off and never seem to get something done.