“the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love…” che guevara
nick and i have been talking for days now about barack vs. the movement he leads. how it takes the right kind of person, that once in a generation figure who can reach out across all barriers into the roads of all walks of life. how in our little (bug huge) community in indiana, we have come together from all walks of life to end this campaign on may 6th.
today as i was heading up my new post as the first face of campaign headquarters, i sat with my co-first face and one of the local political heroes, estella. estella is pushing 80, african american, all kinds of wonderful, and a true public servant in her community (and she knows everyone). i don’t know that i possess the knowledge of words to describe my admiration for her. she speaks with a wisdom i can only hope to someday be able to share. when she speaks of her late husband, she says, “they just don’t make ‘em like that one”. so simple but so beautiful, those eight words speak volumes of her love for her husband, the wonderful life they shared, how much she misses him, and how much she looks forward to the day they reunite in the great wonder that lies beyond. those are certainly eight words i hope to say every single day to the lucky man who wins my heart. today she said, “i thank the lord every day for letting me live long enough to see something so beautiful as this campaign… white folks, black folks, young and old, all working together this way.” again, in those few words, estella summed it up. we, the people of this campaign, come from all walks of life, but we are guided by a great feeling of love and together we are marching toward a greater america, and taking our first steps toward a better world.
i know you want to think that sounds a little bit cheesy and a whole lot naïve and maybe even stupid, but if you stop and think about it, it’s the cynicism, acquired by years, decades, and centuries of talk without walk that make you think that way. and it doesn’t have to be that way. i really do believe that working together, the people of this country (and the world eventually) can make anything happen. every single day since i first joined this campaign, back in february, i have witnessed the greatness in this campaign, have seen that it is a place where things happen to and for people who want it badly enough. i have seen the great things that happen when folks from all walks of life find common ground and the terrible that happens when those same folks focus that energy on that which divides us. it’s a choice we make every single day when we wake up. some of us wake up every day and say a quick prayer, thanking the universe for the small and great wonders in our lives. others of us wake up every single day wondering who’s going to fuck us over today. and more of us live somewhere in the middle, where we go through phases of each, and wonder if it was our negativity that brought the terrible or the terrible things that made us negative and cynical.
fortunately, right now, right this very moment, there are hundreds of us who wake up every single day thanking our lucky stars for the beauty in our lives so we recognize the great feeling of love that guides us. hundreds of us are on the ground right now, in towns and cities across america, making phone calls, knocking on doors, feeding and hydrating and supplying the volunteers and offices for the barack obama campaign, and some of us even running those offices. some of us are paid, most of us are not, but all of us are guided by a great feeling of love and we are being led by the next president of the united states, working side-by-side because we all believe that we are the change we’ve been waiting for.
cross posted at daily kos
