Thread by @mhbx

It is moving seeing this display. I suppose there is a sense of coming around the last mile after a long and arduous journey, fraught with perils...and now that is over. Wounded but alive, and growing in strength just for making it home.
A promise that it will be different now.

It is a sense of dodging a deadly bullet. A sense that we might in fact find some of those better angels Lincoln talked about.
A realization that an egoist at the center is a drain on the country, & a wound that consumes all the attn & resources, leaving the citizens adrift.

A sense, not even a hope, but a certainty that the Citizens will be restored to their proper place, not as bit players in someone else's fantasies, but as the reason for the grand experiment in democracy in the first place.

And the lives of the citizens of the country will not be treated as collateral damage for the salvation of one man's solipsism but will be treated with the honor and gravity & compassion that the people deserve.

The hope comes to think we might make the effort to actually heal the wounds, not only of this pernicious virus COVID, but the other wounds of dread fears, incubating a growing authoritarianism, the wound of hopelessness, wounds of want & basic needs.

And the wounds we have inflicted on our earth.

Maybe we will grapple with one of the core wounds of racial animosities. Maybe.

I wonder if we are ready, even now, after so many tumultuous years, and so much anger, dying, abuses, to give it another go.

It seems we have to heal this one for any deep healing of any of the other issues to take hold. Listening to some of the speeches of MLKing again, not the "hope" one, but the others, more sharp & true to the moment, and realizing that we have traveled a bit from those times

but not far enough as yet.

All of this and more. More memories, thoughts, hopes, seem to be infused in these images that stand for a public ready to try again to work toward the unity and the great ideals, as yet still in process. Nowhere near done. But still trying.

Still in process.

The process now is seen in the shift from whatever that brush with death was to the realization that at least we have another shot at making the changes necessary to give us another shot at getting it right.

No Pollyanna here. I know the next leg of this journey, this ancient struggle against the lesser angels of our nature is hardly complete. And the forces that are no so moved are also strong, and also have their vision and purposes. They are not vanquished, just slithering

away for awhile, to nurse the wounds and plot the revenge of the slighted & rejected self. Meanwhile there will be plenty of skirmishes & battles with those remain with us to do their mischief.
Our defense will be in tending to the impossible work of healing and rebuilding.

There is a lot of suffering yet between now and then. But we have this difference: in the change over from whatever that dystopic period was (and it is well documented what it was) to shifting the underlying vision & purpose of our efforts as a nation & the leadership required

to make that shift. We have at least that going for us.

The road we were on was hurtling toward a chasm without a bridge. At least we have changed the trajectory, and have bought a little time. Hopefully enough to make a difference.

It feels like we just may have.

I posted this a while ago. These are the sounds and song I hear looking at this Field of Flags. The sounds playing while walking that last mile through these Flags, so full of meaning and symbolic meaning.

A remembrance of what has been lost, and honoring that loss. Embracing that and realizing that even even though the immensity of the losses have been great, not all was lost. We have been just resilient enough to come through that firestorm intact.

There will be other songs for the days ahead. All in their time. Powerful songs, full of hope, even joy. The soundtrack of the next thing. A cacophony of change.

For now this one is drilling deep.
It feels like a calling and a promise.

Sources
bit.ly/3it5H7u

thedenverchannel.com/news/election-…

pollstar.com/article/c3-pro…

illinoisnewsroom.org/photo-gallery-…

nbcwashington.com/news/local/tim…