Happy Holidays...

It’s snowing this morning outside my window. It’s so peaceful. I am filled with gratitude. We all need peace this week, and maybe next. The anger, hurt, terror, and betrayal of the last six weeks are gone from my center. Gone. They’re replaced with a certainty around this holiday that I’ve celebrated for some 70 years plus one, and have loved since I was a child.

A new day dawns, a new year sits on the horizon, and while much has changed and the challenges we face tomorrow will call for the largest mountain of strength we can summon, I am not afraid that we won’t do it. Nope. I’m certain we will.

I reread Amanda Gorman’s poem this morning—the one she read in August at the DNC, where we were all so hopeful. Such a smart girl. So young, but not blinded by the lack of experience of youth. Instead, she’s strong with the knowledge that it’s up to each of us, and we will, or we won’t.

Here it is…

We gather at this hollowed 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. - Amanda Gorman

So happy holidays and for those who grew up as I did, merry Christmas. What a great year we have in front of us. And, next year, we will be grateful for the way we met the challenge this year will bring.

Christine

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If you need or want to hear the poem she read at the inauguration of Joe Biden, here it is below.

"The Hill We Climb"

When day comes, we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast.

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions of what “just” is
isn’t always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.

Somehow we weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time
where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president,
only to find herself reciting for one.

- Amanda Gorman (Read the poem in its entirety here)

Let’s buy her poem and send it to someone younger than you. Maybe someone much younger than you, and that is the book we read on inauguration day next month. We have much work to do.

Order it from your local book store, but if you are going to use Amazon, please use our link below, so that we get paid for the sale. We will send it to the ACLU.

You can buy the book here.