First there was the "We Are One" concert held at the Lincoln Memorial on Monday, January 19, 2009 - the day we celebrate the life and accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King. As a child, I remember his death. I remember the riots in D. C. and how it changed our nation forever. The fact that we lost both John and Bobby Kennedy as well seemed to put the nail in the coffin of equality in the 60s.
Yet there they were, people from as far away as overseas gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate our first African American President. The energy was amazing. You could feel it through the images on your TV screen. Songs were sung with an amazing passion, Hollywood's best having come out to be a part of this history. Even though he was not a speaker at the concert, I thought I saw George Lucas in the crowd.
The mall was filled with people of euphoric spirit. Many cried as artists belted out their reverence for the moment. I cried because I not only felt their passion, but the nature of collective love coalescing. It was as if hundreds of years of anger, shame and defeat had been filtered away to a lower dimension leaving nothing but purity and truth behind. The 19th allowed us to bask in the love. Inauguration day, however, showed us how to be love.
From the very beginning, I did not like Barack Obama. I was a Hillary supporter through and through. I saw Obama's arrogance and ego in every news story. This was not the energy needed to heal the wounds George Bush had inflicted on our nation, nor a salve for our foreign relationships. Yet on a dark night in Grant Park, after being declared the winner, I saw a completely different Obama. I saw an every day man, a family man, a man who seemed to truly want better for the people of this country. Whether it was sheer exhaustion or the sigh of relief for winning the fight, the arrogance had faded away and I was able to see the true Barack Obama. This was the Obama the rest of the world must have fallen in love with.
I was glad Hillary had supported him so strongly and asked me to do the same with my vote. These are the times when being an empath can get in the way. Sometimes you turn away from the fight in the man before you get to experience his better qualities. I saw some of the fighter today, this day of his inauguration. I also saw a man who loved his wife and children;who wasn't afraid of being out in the world in plain sight. A man who was strong enough to say, "We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things." He called everyone out.
The day ended with 10 Inaugural Balls. The very first "The Neighborhood Ball" was the perfect ending for the day. Barack Obama brought out his lovely wife Michelle and of all the things he could have said in this moment, the most important one, the one he chose to lead with was:
"First of all - how good looking is my wife?"
He held her lovingly and even Beyonce had trouble trying to keep the tears from flowing. They were a perfect example of how a man should love a woman - equally. It is the perfect image for others who have given up on what a happy family could be.
All throughout his path to the White House, Obama has kept one thing in mind - that we ARE all one. In this, he taught us to see ourselves as one. On the mall there were people of all different persuasions, but they all had the same joyous thought in mind. They were a witness to history gone right.
I've had to call a few places today to take care of some difficult personal business, but even the people on the other end of the line seemed to be unnaturally of good cheer. It's easy to be loving to one another, when you are in a place of love. I hope for all of us that the Obama's love both as man and wife and part of a family will continue to permeate our culture. This is what The Golden Age is - a place where we can freely love one another without fear. Where love is king.
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