Looking Toward Earth Day

We are called to assist the earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own--indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty, and wonder.

Wangari Maathai,Kenyan environmentalist, political activist, and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

A New Bottom Line

[We need] to embrace a "new bottom line" in which corporations, social practices, government policies and individual behaviors are judged rational, efficient or productive not only if they maximize money or power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, kindness and generosity, ethical and ecological sensitivity, enhance our capacity to treat others as embodiments of the sacred and to respond with awe, wonder, and radical amazement at the grandeur of the universe. - Rabbi Michael Lerner

Inauguration Day

Let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled.

In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it)."

America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Barack Hussein Obama
44th president of the United States of America

To Norah Vincent, Who Didn't Vote

The Los Angeles Times this morning ran an opinion piece by writer Norah Vincent titled, "A Vote Too Late for Obama," in which Vincent confesses that she didn't vote in last week's historic election because she didn't like Obama's tax proposals, found McCain "intellectually brittle" and Palin downright terrifying. But now she's having second thoughts.

"As I've watched the wave of post-election elation rushing over so many people in recent days," Vincent says, "and as I have been unexpectedly and powerfully moved myself, I've started to feel a little, I don't know, out of it."

A hundred and twelve people responded to Vincent's commentary, expressing just about every possible reaction from "You're an idiot" to "Don't worry, Obama will disappoint us all, and then you won't have to feel guilty." But still, I felt moved to toss in my two cents:

How sad, Norah. This past week has been a highlight of my life, a defining moment in U.S. and world history! I'm sorry you passed up the opportunity to be a part of it.

You're brave to share your thoughts and regrets with the public, though, and I hope you can ignore the cruelty in some of these comments. Strange stuff for such a hopeful, magnanimous time as this.

You've explained, quite eloquently, why you didn't vote. Which has inspired me to explain why I do. Why, in fact, I can't not vote.

Voting is such a rare and costly privilege. So few people anywhere, at any time, have ever had a say in who governed them or how. Yet we Americans do. And that's only because so many have sacrificed so much for so long.

When I think of all the soldiers killed or wounded in all the wars fought to establish and preserve this nation, and of all the heartbreak and hardship imposed on their families and communities back home, I can't not vote.

When I think of all the immigrants, including my own Lithuanian grandparents, who left behind forever everything and everyone they knew and loved, all to live in a new world where men were free to determine their own destinies, I can't not vote.

When I think of all the suffragettes who marched through jeering crowds and chained themselves to fences and staged hunger strikes and endured prison forcefeedings so that women, too, could help shape our society, I can't not vote.

When I think of all the African-Americans in my native South having to wait an entire century after Lincoln freed the slaves before their opinions finally counted, I can't not vote.

And when I think of boys just a few years older than I, drafted at age 18, forced to fight, even to die in Vietnam, but not considered old enough to help elect or reject those who sent them there, I can't not vote.

Even when the weather's bad or the lines are long, even when the issues don't seem all that important, or I can't get excited about any of the candidates--even then, I can't not vote. I just can't.

This time of course was different. This time made up for every boring, disappointing election I've ever voted in. This time we made all those sacrifices count for something. I wish you could know how good that feels.

Beyond Words

Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.

Martin Luther King Jr.
Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, Dec. 11, 1964.

Why I Voted for Barack Obama

Finally, after two years of campaigning, election day is here. And whatever the outcome, it's going to be historic.

I have long felt this election is the most critical in my lifetime—in no small measure because I am convinced we have now lived through the worst administration in our nation’s history. An administration that squandered the opportunity of national unity imposed by national tragedy, that instead exploited our fears to advance its own twisted agenda. The havoc that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their pseudo-Republican crew have wrought upon this country and across the world in little more than seven years is simply stunning. Who would have believed so much could have gone wrong so fast? If it were fiction, no one would buy it. (If only it were fiction.)

No wonder the president’s approval rating has fallen to 22 percent, the lowest since Herbert Hoover. You'd think all this would ensure a Democratic victory. And yet the presidential race is still too close to call. This is how divided we are as a nation. Why? Because people are afraid. Afraid of losing control. Afraid of others they perceive as different from them. Afraid of change. Or the lack of it.

In essence, I have come to see this election as a fundamental choice between the past and the future, between fear and hope.

I have no illusions that a rookie senator from Illinois can fix all our problems. The system is too entrenched; the problems, too dire and widespread. But perhaps he can begin to turn the ship around, to head us in a new direction.

I realize I may have been taken, snookered by a smooth talker, a man of natural eloquence and amazing poise. But his words, however lofty, strike me as genuine. He seems to speak from a quiet center informed by intellect, compassion and faith. He seems to understand that true leadership is all about service, not power. He is, in a word, inspiring.

And so I dare to hope. I hope this nation will not act from fear yet again, but will instead find the courage to change, to embrace a new era of history. I hope Barack Obama will be our next president.

The Arrows That Fly

The end of summer is already in sight, and for me, it's been a good one, a relaxing, therapeutic break after a long seige of sadness, made sweeter by the tandem triumphs of both daughters. In fact, I have been floating all summer on a happy cloud of maternal pride. I've done little but stand along the sidelines and cheer them on; still, I can't help but feel a flush of vicarious success watching each of my grown-up girls achieve momentous personal and professional goals.

In June, the whole family gathered in Davis, California to watch EK claim her doctor of veterinary medicine degree, the fruit of years of grueling study, punctuated by a number of significant personal challenges. She'd persevered through it all, and now at last she'd achieved her ambitious goal.

It was the great American dream come to life. I thought of my grandparents, Lithuanian immigrants and North Carolina tobacco farmers; my parents, each the first in their families to earn college degrees and a hardwon toehold in the middle-class. It was much the same on Bob's side, shoe salesmen and cafeteria workers sent their children to college and on to solid, respectable lives in education and military service. Bob and I pushed a little further on the education front, each earning a master's degree. And now our daughter was moving far beyond our accomplishments.

It felt right; it felt natural. After all, it's what we expect here in the land of opportunity, the country my Lithuanian grandfather, a bricklayer and shoe factory worker, used to praise with the simple pronouncement, "This is America." Sometimes these days, I am glad Alex Millerskofski isn't here to see how his beloved new world has changed. But this wasn't one of those times. I could only hope that somewhere, he and our other family forerunners were watching this wonderful little American vignette unfold.

Happily, Bob's mother, Mimi to Lauren and EK, was with us to hear the dean introduce her granddaughter as Dr. Erin Kendall Younger, to see her walk across the stage and pause, beaming, as the doctoral hood was lowered over her head, then walk on to accept her diploma from the chancellor of the University of California. All the while those of us in the peanut gallery—Bob, Lauren and I, Mimi, Aunt Terri and Uncle John—clapped and cheered like crazy and wiped away more than a few tears. Look, I whispered to all those watching from beyond. Just look. She's a doctor! That night at dinner, EK made a point of thanking us for our support, and we all raised a glass to those who'd come and gone before us. Those whose love and hard work made our celebration possible. Those who would have loved to be sharing our happiness and no doubt, somewhere just outside our field of perception, were.

My wise and wonderful friend, Martha Bruton, now a grandmother of grown children, called me a few months ago to say, "Sandra, I had a moment." It was in a restaurant over the holidays. She sat down at the end of a long table and looked out at the sight of her entire family--sons, daughter, spouses, grandchildren--all gathered on either side of her. And she thought, “Look. Just look at this family of mine.” Not long after graduation, I called her to say, "Martha, I had a moment, too."

And then came Lauren's moment. After slogging through a debilitating year of personal and career disappointments, not to mention Seattle's perpetual rain and clouds, she'd come close to bailing out of the gloomy Northwest for good, returning home to sunny San Diego and starting over pretty much from scratch. In fact, things looked so dire around the first of this year that we offered our support of that rather drastic decision. But thank goodness Lauren reached down deep, made a few changes in her life and stuck it out a little longer, long enough to experience a total turnaround on every front! The icing on the cake came three weeks ago when her start-up software company was acquired by a big-name tech firm, resulting in all sorts of perks, accolades and positive changes for LL. "Seattle is like a new city to me now," she told me recently. What a great, well-timed and well-deserved reward for her faith, perseverance and resilience. And what beautiful music to a mother's ears.

I wouldn't have believed this 25 years ago, when the girls were baby-faced pre-schoolers, but no matter how old our children may be, how adult, independent and accomplished, mothers are still mothers; fathers, still fathers. We see our progeny as they are, competent and independent adults, but we see them, too, as the babes, the children, the tweens and teens they once were. It all merges together in our minds and hearts, and we love them more and better than ever. We still worry about them when they face tough times. And we still cheer like crazy when they succeed.

Thinking about how beautifully my grown-up girls are meeting the challenges of their own lives, despite the ups and downs they (as everyone) still face, reminds me of a book popular when Bob and I were in college. It was a slim little volume, very new agish for its day, by a Lebanese poet, Kahlil Gibran, and called “The Prophet.” Thirty years ago, reveling in our own burgeoning independence, the passage we zeroed in on was the prophet’s lecture to parents about the importance of letting their little ones go.

"Your children are not your children," Gibran wrote. "They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you, for life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday."

Now, of course, I identify more with the next few verses:

"You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and he bends you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; for even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable."

At the time, I’m sure we loved the idea of parents bending to ensure our success. We didn’t notice the part about their gladness. We didn’t much care if they were glad about it or not. We just wanted out from under their scrutiny. But now I get it. Now I know where the gladness comes from. Our children’s success is our success. That’s why parents, like the archer himself, love to see the arrows fly swift and far, finding their marks upon the path of the infinite.