Today I sing Democracy: The Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama

I am watching what they are claiming to be the biggest inauguration of presidential history. I am struck by the day; not just because a new president is being sworn in, but that we are living in a country that allows the peaceful exchanging of power from one hand to another. Not one taken by force, not one given in fear. It has been given as a gift, given in full trust that this person who has been elected will lead our people and represent our nation.

What a day! What an honor, what a hard journey ahead.

Today Barack Obama reminded us that we all have “duties to ourselves” as we go forth from this day. “We need to seize these duties gladly, because there is nothing as satisfying as grabbing a task, for this is the meaning of our liberty and our creed that every man and every woman everywhere can take joy in this oath”.

I watch in a sad sort of way, the end to one idea as a new idea is going to slowly unfold in Washington in the days and weeks and months to come. As the helicopter slowly circles up and around Washington, it signifies “out with the old ideas; in with the new”. President Obama talked about the “amount of our ambitions” and about “as much as the government can do and must do, it relies on the faith of the American people to get it done”. It was a meaningful moment, watching the Obama’s wave goodbye to the Bushes’ —waving as one does to a departing family member, all differences put aside for the moment.

The history of the nation that I live in engulfs me today as I think of other lands that are fighting to get even a glimpse of what we have here. Thanks to the countless men and women who fought and died, fought and endured hard, hopeless condition so that I may wake up in the bed of my choice. I may go to work where I choose, in the state that I want to live in, in the life that I want to be part of. Wow, what an idea! What a country to live in! I wrote this blog to remember and to remind all that “all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance”. …remembering who we are and what we have done in the past is the key to how we are going to get to the future. I am proud to be an American and even though I did not vote for Barack Obama, I am proud to be part of a system that allowed me to have a voice and to be able to speak my choice loudly. This is why the day was so exciting to me.

Elizabeth Alexander wrote a poem and had the distinct honor of reading it at the inauguration. I would love to share it with you:

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum, with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declared; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.