Hoping the Best for America Today

I am not saying that we should be without affection, and that with an arid heart we move only our hands to work. Among the many great and grievous evils that the apostle ascribes to men I have read this one is reckoned: to be without affection...

How long shall we smell and not taste, gazing toward the fatherland and not taking possession, sighing for it and saluting from afar?
Bernard of Clairvaux, early 12th Century

Watching as a Canadian, it seemed to me that Barack Obama's President Elect speech reintroduced the American people to their good hearts. As I found myself saying "Yes, we can!" I heard a whole nation resurfacing from beneath a decade of rubble which divided nations and broke the bank.

Barack Obama reminds me again, that the great orators of history are remembered more than the policies and battles which engulfed their world. Barack Obama is a tuning fork and a drum for America, and today, for me. I appreciate the power of an authentic word spoken at just the right time in history.

And any good American will tell you that it's about the whole people (we the people), not just Obama. That they are all in line behind him and know how to follow a good leader into a bright hopeful future, no matter what the obstacles ahead.

Today, I know what I'm praying when I say, "God, bless America."

U.S.A., it's time to resurface, dust yourself off and walk in a good way... or not.

I'll conclude with a bit more of my Bernard of Clairvaux reading from this morning, "But there is one thing you must attend to with total vigilance: that you always open the windows and lattices of your confessions. Through them his kindly gaze may penetrate to your inward life, because his discerning is your learning."