And then overnight, the world changed...

As I do most mornings, I went to the gym the morning after the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. I was going up the stairs to the locker room and a black guy was coming down on his way to work out. We passed each other and our eyes met for just a moment. We nodded, exchanged a brief howyadoin and continued on our way.

But there was something different about our exchange now. We both knew it. In the space of even those few seconds you could measure easily just how much the world had changed. It had happened literally, overnight. In the space of a casual glance, an innocent pleasantry that happens without a second thought a million times a day between strangers, we both had an “aha” moment. Everything was different now.

It felt like getting a pair of new glasses. I remember when I would put a new pair of glasses on and the first thing I would see was how much I had been missing. The edges around everything were suddenly sharp enough to cut. The world is wavy in its clarity and your legs feel wobbly until your brain acclimates to the flood of visual information your eyes are feeding it. A new world bursts open and while the brain struggles to process it, the eyes can’t get enough. Everything is there in its glorious splendor and it’s all waiting to be seen.

With the election of Barack Obama, the country and the world have just gotten a new pair of glasses. We are all walking around now marveling for a moment at how much we were missing. New maps need to be drawn to accommodate this new territory. New assumptions need to be made about each other and most importantly, about ourselves.

In time, we will acclimate to the new world that has blossomed right before our eyes. The ground will firm up beneath our wobbly legs. But for now, every casual meeting is full of a spontaneous humanity and a marvelous potential. We have stepped out from behind the tedious roles of our history. We have lowered the familiar mask of expectation behind which our humanity is demeaned and dismissed and for this one moment at least, we have seen each other. Who are we now? What will we become? The question in all its glorious potential, is asked now even in a casual nod. A routine howyadoin?

This is where the work begins and yes, this is where the fun starts…

Victory Speech from Grant Park.

In case you went to bed before the victory speech, you can enjoy it here.

http://tinyurl.com/5s39g6


Go down to the bottom of the page.

Voting Report

My wife Gloria and I had about a 30 minute wait this morning to vote for Obama. An eclectic group of people were on line with us. Many first time voters. Touching to see how they dressed up for the occasion. The man in front of me wearing a new black cord shirt with fresh jeans and a new black Nike baseball hat to match. ANGEL was tattooed in faced blue ink on the back of his neck under the collar.

An elderly man in a blue suit and tie, with a brown knit ski cap and snapping his fingers by the ear of a little Hispanic boy, looking away when he turned around. He is holding a brochure in Spanish for new citizen first time voters.

Epiphany is right across the street from the polling station, so I put out our welcome table, some chocolates that didn't go at Halloween, and information about the church. Oh yes, and our torture banner was moved front and center.

The world is changing. (The banner is part of our participation in the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. It reads, "EPIPHANY LUTHERAN CHURCH SAYS: TORTURE IS WRONG"

Interview with John Updike

Follow this link for wonderful interview with John Updike. The celebrated author shares his thoughts on the candidates, the presidential election, and his home state of Pennsylvania. Many valuable cultural insights...
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/10/30/multimedia/1194829741569/a-conversation-with-john-updike.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

what if things were switched?

I received this in an email from a friend. It touches on something that has been bothering me throughout this election season, but haven't been able to articulate. The email follows below:

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?
(The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.

Next Stop...Hempstead

We’re getting ready for the final presidential debate here in Hempstead. Newsday ran a story this morning that no one, not even VIP’s, will have much luck in getting into Hofstra Wednesday night. I guess we’ll be watching on TV.

Demonstrators are getting organized. I get a few emails a day about the various demonstrations being planned. I think Hempstead Turnpike is going to be lined with people, shoulder to shoulder, from Hofstra right on down to the front of the church for most of the day. I imagine the Island is going to be one big grid-lock Wednesday.

Every day that passes now, there is the sense of momentum, an air of inevitability to the election. McCain is fading fast. He is morphing into a character out of Grumpy Old Men. Not even one of the leads; a supporting grumpy old man. He says anything now and contradicts himself, many times in the same sentence. It doesn’t matter. No one is paying enough attention to him now to bother correcting him. The conversation has moved past him.

Watching him is like watching one of those dubbed foreign movies. The mouth stops moving and the words keep going. Facial expressions flash across McCain’s face at random, unconnected to anything. More like tics really. Especially when he is trying to exude warmth. I remember him standing there at the beginning of the last debate, expressions cascading across his face like all the circuits in there were booting up. It was a little creepy.

What’s going to be interesting now is the future of Sarah Palin. Does she have a legitimate political future out of this, or does this constitute the sum total of her 15 minutes of fame? The comedy writers will be sorry to see her go. She is a gift from the comedy muse. It’ll be back to work for them once she rides off into the Alaskan sunset. The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live should give her royalty cuts.

Existential Algebra

Here's a bit of existential algebra. How much difference can one person make in the world?

I have tended to underestimate that, I think. As an artist, I have eschewed the role of 'activist' as being too limiting. Besides, my sense of anger too easily ties my tongue in knots. I wind up writing embarrassing rants that collapse at my feet under their own indignant weight.

Activism seems more goal driven. Art requires a willingness to end up in a different place than you intended when starting out. Which is to say, a willingness to be surprised. Art requires a certain detachment (from outcome) and paradoxically a sense of passion (translated hope). Therein lies the creative tension. How does one manage to maintain passionate detachment? It is easy to get out of whack. Writer's block, depression, cynicism step in to fill the gaps.

Underestimating the impact of the individual is one of those gaps. Everyone rushes in to proclaim a hero, and the artist hangs back. There are no heroes, how much difference can one person make? The hero walks hand in hand with the anti-hero. The sun casts its long shadow.

There is undeniable truth in that observation, as long as you recognize the limitations of it as well. It is not an excuse to do nothing and retreat into cynicism, or quietism, or defeatism. Instead, it is the opportunity to lay hold of your own destiny and not place it in the hands of someone else. Hero or villain.

How much difference can one person really make in the world? My answer. George W. Bush.

In eight years his incurious incompetence has changed the world in astounding ways. Mostly for the worst. Now, if one person's incompetence and unresolved father issues can produce such disastrous changes, isn't the opposite, the capacity for positive change, just as possible at the hand of one person? I believe it is.

If one person can be responsible for so much devastation, one person can also manage to turn it around. Which makes me hopeful for the coming election. Which moves me to be part of my world, with all its shortcomings. Which is to say, shoulder my share of the activist load.

I was never very good at algebra. But, in the midst of the terrible destruction and devastation of Bush years, I can be grateful to be coming out them with this measure of hope still in the social equation. No small feat.