HOPE FREEDOM JOY
WE ARE NOT GOING BACK!
It is the day after the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. I was just miles away from the Convention Site in Chicago in 1968. I had just graduated from college and I did not have big dreams. My Mother's biggest stated dream for me was graduating from High School, I do believe that both my Grandmother and my Mother had bigger dreams for me, but life circumstances, the times, and their own conflicted hopes and fears could not allow them to say them out loud. I sat in the living room of my house, watching what was happening outside of the convention. I had friends that had gone, and in those moments something stirred deeply in me. I had been slowly opening my eyes and heart to what was happening in my world - the conflicts within our own country, the conflicts around the world, Vietnam, Civil Rights, who held power, who took it away. Questioning what stories we were told and who thought they had a monoply on the truth. Who lies and who are the truth tellers and willing to listen, speak up and be willing to learn?
All of these images have come more out-front in these past days as I listened and watched and really heard what each brave, courageous, caring, diverse patriots participating in our democratic process.
On the morning of the last day of the Convention I found myself reaching for a book in my now much smaller collection of poetry books. I was looking for An Atlas of the Difficult World, poems 1988-1991 by Adrienne Rich. I wanted to read the poem that had touched me so deeply so many many years ago: One night on Monterey Bay the death freeze of the century . I invite you to read the poem but what was pulling me to take the book off the shelf was this one stanza in the poem:
" A patriot is not a weapon. A patriot is one who wrestles for the soul of her country as she wrestles for her own being, for the soul of his country (gazing through the great circle at Window Rockinto the sheen of the Viet Nam Wall) as he wrestles for his own being. A patriot is a citizen trying to wake .....
Where are we moored? What are the bindings? What behooves us? "
I was not conscious of what dormant words were filling up in me as I was listening Amanda Gorman. Tears flowed as I watched and listened to this young, powerful, glorious poet give her clarion call. I was not conscious that inside of me I was harkening back to the late 90's when I listened as Adrienne Rich as she told me (us all) that a patriot was not a weapon and asked where was I moored, what binds me, what behooves me - not as just this one single person-me, but as a woman who was connected and collectively a part of each and every one of us. All of us who hold up this country who is bound to the world. Adrienne shook me, comforted me, schooled me, and cared for me with her words on that night.
Amanda Gorman did all that and more to so many of us as she asked us all to embrace, to remember that we are all, each one of us a part of the American dream, and the Freedom is not free. Breathe in what has stirred in your soul.
Here is Amanda Gorman reading the poem she wrote and read at the 2024 Democratic National Convention:
We gather at this hallowed place because we believe in the American dream.
We face a race that tests if this country we cherish shall perish from the earth and if our earth shall perish from this country.
It falls to us to ensure that we do not fall for a people that cannot stand together, cannot stand at all.
We are one family regardless of religion, class, or color
for what defines a patriot is not just our love of liberty, but our love for one another.
This is loud in our country's call because while we all love freedom, it is love that frees us all.
Empathy emancipates, making us greater than hate or vanity. That is the American promise, powerful and pure.
Divided we cannot endure but united we can endeavor to humanize our democracy and endear democracy to humanity.
and make no mistake, cohering is the hardest task history ever wrote,
but tomorrow is not written by our odds of hardship, but by the audacity of our hope by the vitality of our vote.
Only now, approaching this rare air are we aware that perhaps the American dream is no dream at all, but instead a dare to dream together.
Like a million roots tethered, branching up humbly, making one tree.
This is our country from many, one, from battles won,
our freedoms sung, our kingdom come has just begun.
We redeem this sacred scene ready for our journey from it.
Together we must birth this early republic and achieve an unearthly summit.
Let us not just believe in the
American dream. Let us be worthy of it.
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