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| | Sitting At The Feet of the Great | | | Wednesday, November 5, 2008 (7:54 PM)
(I'm feeling touched) | | On the day after such a heroic and historic event, I was sitting at my kitchen table today. It is here at my table that I sit at the feet of famous men.
Everyday, I read Napoleon Hill’s Law of Success (the original version that became his book “Think and Grow Rich.”)
It is in those pages that I study what it takes for greatness to become part of our lives. What you can become with hope, honesty, and belief.
And I think back to last night when I sat, tears streaming down my face, listening to two of the greatest speeches I have ever heard in my lifetime.
Something inside me was stirred, and I remember being a young child of 4 or 5. Seeing the hope and shining eyes of my parents as we watched John F. Kennedy speak on our black and white television back in the 1960s.
And I can then remember the day Kennedy was shot. I understood then that hope had been snuffed out in America. It has taken us many decades of my lifetime (I’ll be 50 years old next year) to get that hope back.
And while I watched the humble emotion-filled speech of a war hero - John McCain - I suddenly knew how my parents felt back then. And I felt the pride of having served America in the military in my lifetime.
And even more so - as I watched the tears streaming down the faces of the people - young and old - in the crowd in Chicago as Barack Obama spoke, I couldn’t help but be overcome with emotion again.
Though I am white (with some native american blood), I lived through many of the times when blacks were treated badly. I heard my brother say the “N-word” so many times and never understood why he said it. I know now that it was ignorance.
And for the first time in my life, I fell to my knees and begged God to protect our new president from the evil people of this world. And then asked Him to protect all innocent people of this world from all the evil people that also inhabit it. I prayed for Love, Hope, Strength, and acceptance of all people.
(And I am NOT a religious person in ANY sense of the word)
And seeing the young people who will carry on this world long after I am gone, I was moved more than I’ve ever been in my life. Moved to marvel at their energy and hope. And seeing in my mind’s eye the world they want so much to live in.
I cannot, even now, describe my feelings.
Yes, I voted for him. I will reveal that now. I had no idea who I would vote for - even as I was driving to the polls.
But something grabbed me as I stood looking at my ballot in that little booth with the red, white, and blue curtain. I remembered a debate that Barack had with John McCain awhile back. McCain was acting like a whiny, little kid on a playground, finding fault with the other kid. It was not one of the shining moments for such a great man as McCain. I think he knew he was in the company of greatness, just as Napoleon Hill did many decades ago.
And while McCain kept trying to ridicule Barack, I kept seeing Obama’s grace, his calm, and his maturity in the face of that ridicule.
And suddenly, there in the booth, the choice in my own heart was clear.
And then I knew what Napoleon Hill must’ve felt as he interviewed those 500 great men to write his book. Awe and gratitude must’ve filled him for having known these men in his lifetime.
I felt the same way about Kennedy, and now Obama.
We have all witnessed one of the most historic moments in american history.
AREN’T WE THE LUCKY ONES??????
God Bless America.
Lynne
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