The Fierce Urgency of Now

There are two pictures of people on my classroom wall at school: Martin Luther King Jnr. and Robert Kennedy. They both were shot in 1968. Bobby Kennedy lived to see Martin Luther King's death, and he spoke about it. Although Martin Luther King is the obvious link to Barack Obama it is the younger Kennedy I thought of when I felt that bubble of hope grow and seemingly burst up inside me as I followed the last 48 hours of the Obama campaign.

I only came around to Obama at the end. I heard him on the way to work yesterday speaking at a rally in Canton, Ohio. For the first time in a long time I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. For the first time in awhile I felt that hope was actually permitted, and that it was not a word being used insincerely in the mouth of just any man. Obama in the last few days of his campaign seemed to reach into the oratory of the black pastor, of the Afro-American minister, of Martin Luther King Jnr. I think this is the obvious comparison, and it was moving to see Jesse Jackson tonight standing with all those other people in the field before the first Afro-American President of America, it was moving to see him standing there crying and know that he had walked beside the coffin of Martin Luther King and had lived to see this day, that the hand that had rested on King's coffin was lofted now in celebration, forty years later.

When I got home tonight and heard that Obama had won I went and found my CD of Robert Kennedy speeches and played this:

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves that our own children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember – even if only for a time – that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek – as we do – nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

Whether we like it or not, America is the moral compass of the West. It's revolution at the end of the 18th century forms the basis of our beliefs today. It has the scale of empire, its rhetoric is listened to, the poetry of its oratory is accepted as meaningful, and it has been meaningful right from the start:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

And today we see this exact principle enacted with the election of Barack Obama. How comfortable Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would have been with Barak as President is a moot point, but the truth of the statements at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence stand the test of time. America was founded on a mixture of pragmatism and heady idealism expressed in poetry and violence. Poetry and violence is a chapter about Bobby Kennedy. Poetry and violence is a chapter about Martin Luther King.

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I'm happy, tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

When I got home tonight I listened to Bobby Kennedy and I played with my daughter. I thought two things. First I thought how glad I am that my daughter is alive in an age when people can talk about hope again without sarcasm. Then I thought I would put another picture on my classroom wall tomorrow.

A picture of Barack Obama.