America is emerging from a long brutal Presidential election that pitted the politics of hope against the politics of fear, and with the election of our first non-white President, hope has triumphed in America.
Fear was marginally set aside in some places and dramatically set aside in others as Americans came together to create a landslide of those who believe in the promise of our great nation, who are dedicated to work for a future we still believe can be ours and to reject the division of our diverse peoples into separate camps of race and gender and religion.
Hope has triumphed, but love still has many great challenges ahead. Fifty-three percent of us may be celebrating this victory, but at least forty-six percent of our fellow Americans are troubled and worried what this next President will mean for them and their loved ones. Love is challenged to quell their fears, to stir their hope and to bring us all back together again as one nation under many visions of God.
Love is challenged to reconcile those who are still gripped by fear. Love is challenged to bring all Americans under the fold of this new movement of hope, to see our shared possibilities through the lens of the best that can be and not the worse that can be. Love is challenged to mend the families, friendships, businesses and private groups of citizens that have been divided in their choice of candidate, but ultimately unified in their great love and commitment to our nation of the people, by the people and for the people.
Barack Obama is a great American, but around the world, he is even more than that. He is a symbol of the return of the American Dream, a rejection of the unilateral “go-it-alone” American foreign policy of the Bush Administrations and a demonstration that especially in America it doesn’t matter who you are, but what you do most of all—that anyone among the world’s poor and disenfranchised can work hard and rise to power to change their world.
At home, President-elect Obama is celebrated by many of us as the greatest example yet of the American dream of hard work, self-reliance and equality among all regardless of race, creed, color, orientation or origin. Yet Obama is also feared by many Americans, unsure of him and perhaps taken in my negative propaganda or outright lies.
But today and tomorrow can be very different from yesterday if we can but let yesterday go and focus on today. Today and tomorrow are about our NOW vibration, and we have complete control over that. You have complete control over that, and each moment we all make the choice to engage our fear, or to quell it, to reject our natural tendencies to love or to embrace and express them.
As someone who feared and yes, even hated the past eight years, I understand what it feels like to have a President that you do not agree with, do not relate to because of his policies, attitudes or upbringing, and yet over that time my heart has learned time and again that no matter who is in charge of the White House, we each have a choice to love or to hate, to hope or to fear.
Last minute, I was in Ohio as a voter protection volunteer for the Obama campaign on Election Day, and I was honored to do my very small part to help elect Barack Obama. Some fear him as a secret agent for America’s enemies, while others raise the stakes to make him some kind of evil Anti-Christ, and yet those who invest in their fear so much say so much more about themselves than they do about Barack Obama.
We each must look inside and challenge our fears with hope, challenge our hate and discrimination with love. Barack Obama is just one person, as I am just one person, and you are just one person. We each always have a choice: to love or to fear, to act in anger or to act in positivity, to believe in the best or actualize the worst.
Hope will never eradicate fear, like love will never have any meaning without hate, and yet the triumph of hope in this election ignites a beacon for all Americans, for all people of the world. Although we face many challenges, I am confident that love is on the rise and the powers of truth and light will always prevail in the end.
Believe in yourself, seek guidance from your Gods and be kind to your fears, but do not indulge them. If we can do this together, I know hope will provide all the fuel we need to face our challenges with love.
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