The Audacity of Hope

One of the gifts I received this Christmas was a book: The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. In it he speaks of a new kind of politics, "that will reflect our lives as they are actually lived. It won't be prepackaged," he writes, "it will have to be constructed from the best of our traditions and will have to account for the darker aspects of our past. We will need to understand just how we got to this place, this land of warring factions and tribal hatreds. And we'll need to remind ourselves, despite all our differences, just how much we share: common hopes, common dreams, a bond that will not break."

So. Saddam is history. We survived bad spinach and mad cows, Borat, and Brittany. We saw the resignation of Rummy. We saw the Democrats win in both the House and the Senate. This week, the last of 2006, we saw the 3,000th soldier die in Iraq. Obama writes: "I am not naive enough to believe that one episode in the wake of catastrophe can erase decades of mistrust. But it's a start."

Tonight, lets all do our various little happy dances for 2007, for the audacity to hope that 2007 will be better than 2006. I am full. Let me stay like this forever, lullabyed by family, by friends, by an unrolling of irrevocable love and intoxicant life. I hold it as carefully as mortal fingers will allow. Thanks.

Peace. OM.

.