Dorothy: ” Will you help me? Can you help me?”
Glenda the Good Witch: “You don’t need to be helped any longer, you’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.”
Dorothy: “I have? But why didn’t you tell me before?”
Glenda the Good Witch: “Because you wouldn’t have believed me. You had to learn it for yourself.”
—– The Wizard of Oz—–
Across the country excitement is mounting. We have the wind of change filling our sails and we are coasting toward a better tomorrow. Pledges are being made by the celebrities and the common man. School children are being encouraged to reach for their dreams and being told that nothing is impossible for them. We are picking ourselves up, dusting off our shoulders and standing united.
I have been following all of the media leading up to the inauguration of Barack Obama. I too have been swept off my feet and have begun to make my own list of changes that I want to make. Tonight as I was tucking my daughter into bed and brushing the soft stray hairs across her brow I began to think of our nation and what we have been through in the past and how much all of us, all different races have over come.
It occurred to me that we as a nation have always had the power to “return to Kansas.” We have always had the power with in us to make this monumental change. We just needed someone to encourage us a little and someone to step up and show us the yellow brick road leading to our destiny.
I am not here to steal Obama’s thunder. It is rightly deserved and well earned. I have my Tivo set to 3 different stations tomorrow so as not to miss a moment of it. However, we must realize that change is not in this one charismatic man. It is found in us! We are the ones to look into our children’s eyes and motivate them to the future, we are the ones that will walk over, knock on that door and introduce ourselves to the person living next door, we are the ones to save energy by turning off lights when we leave the room, recycle more, and drive less. We will be the authors of letters to our Representatives, and we will be the authors of the next four years. We can make this nation what it needs to be. It started with one man who had a dream for bigger things, it can continue with one person carrying the torch.
Whether we agree or disagree with the way the election turned out we should now all come together and work toward the good of the nation. And our nation starts in our own backyard.
What was at the heart of the Great Depression?
What was there when everything else was gone?
Kindness for the fellow man.
My granny told me stories of people “up in the holler” of the West Virgina mountains that cooked meals for one other and gave what they had to someone who needed it more. They were a nation of frugality, they did not waste anything but reused it and reinvented it until it was gone. They were a people who believed in change, and worked together to bring it back.
In the coming months, the bright beacon of light from Washington D.C will undoubtedly begin to fade from the cast over our eyes and we will be faced once again with the world. We cannot begin to get down on ourselves and we can not begin to cast stones at the man we have placed on this pedestal when he begins to slip. We must stand clustered as a whole and be the change that we want to believe in, the change that we KNOW is possible.
I enjoyed this article, and suggest another energy saver, which also prolongs the life of our dryer and our clothing. Last Friday, as I do every day when there’s no rain and the temperature is above 32, I did two loads of wash for my family of four, and hung them to dry on my backyard clothesline. I may be the only man in my neighborhood doing this, but I’m healthier for it, as I get enough vitamin D from the sunlight to make my calcium supplements work.