Tag Archives: hope

politics

A Nice Take on Barack’s Inaugural

From a NEWSWEEK essay. SOURCE

Surprisingly, he didn’t turn to Lincoln or FDR to cap the address, but old carved-in-marble George Washington, who described a winter so brutal that only “hope and virtue” could survive. The reference to “hope” reminds us that Obama won because he embodies our dreams of a better future. “Virtue,” a vital term in the civic republican vocabulary, is a more complicated case. The first nine presidents used it in an Inaugural Address, but since 1900, only a pair of old soldiers, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, have done so. If Obama rescues the economy, keeps us safe, binds us together, enlarges our freedom and also encourages us (as he said at the Commander in Chief Ball) to “demand not only more of our leaders, but more of ourselves,” then four or eight years from now, you could do a lot worse than calling his presidency an era of Hope and Virtue.

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politics

Sabathia and Obama — High Hopes

Reading here about Sabathia got me thinking about what would happen to the Yankees if all the worst-case things about Sabathia — being back in the AL. past a peak, in the 4s instead of 2s era-wise — came true? Well, that would be a train wreck that I don’t want to witness. But being an avid Yankee fan, I will witness whatever happens, you can be sure.

It got me thinking about expectations. Sabathia must be the most expected person in baseball. And surely Barack is the most expected person period. In the world.

What is nice to think about is the degree to which mind and spirit play a key part in meeting challenges. I feel Sabathia and Obama have lots of that going for them. Sometimes, when challenges rise, a certain grace emerges, some extra positivity to help achieve a good result.

I know Barack watches ESPN for relaxation. Perhaps he looks for metaphors and similes as well.

We have some special things coming our way. I wish both C.C. and B.O. well. More than well. The world. A lot is riding on them. But, like us, they are simply human beings.

We are all in the same boat the challenges we face are no less important than theirs when seen … from a distance. And our overcoming is no less momentous.

Finally it comes down to what we expect of ourselves and the providences we can claim from experience.

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abba's way, charity, freedom, hope

I come to herald hope in deepest depths.

From the book Abba’s Way.

I come to herald hope in deepest depths.
To fill with vision depths of emptiness —
To transform the effects prideful loss,
And anger coiled in insolent repose;
To turn the howls of placelessness and pain,
Into a song of freedom once again.

To break the bars of prisons bearing signs
Named poverty and greed and driven need,
Or charity debased as remedy.
I come to bring an end to all conflict;
For conflict is the challenge at the core.
I come to free all spirits to create,
In blissful freedom from against and for.

Divided depths retain a fearsome form:
Once legions, now young armies, schooled to die,
Around which coalesce most armaments,
Condoned with pride by most authorities.
The depths I seek are deep within each being;
Their canyons course through all communities.
I say that life and death need fight no more.
Protagonists? Antagonists? No more!

Abba is wholeness, justice, peace and love;
Abba is present within every depth—
As light and life and creativity.
It only takes having the eyes to see.

I sing the song of Abba everywhere,
And summon all to live in Abba’s care.
Not as the enemies, but friends, of life,
I call on all to befriend Abba well.

And let no depth remain a source of fear.
For Abba ends every division there
There are too many elements of all,
For any single self to know it all;
To win the depths is to accept oneself,
Within the spectrum which is Abba’s realm.

Transformed depths are the very fruit I bring,
And Abba’s realm the very song I sing.

— from “Abba’s Way”

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