Lauren Unscripted

A few months back I wrote a blog post on Nov 4th, the day Barack Obama was elected to become our 44th president.  Today I write again on inauguration day.  I write to reflect on this moment for myself, to preserve my thoughts to look back on years from now and remember how I felt.  I write to share the emotions I felt today, listening intently as Obama addressed millions.  And I write to respond to this momentous occasion, thrilled to have the opportunity to do so.

It is difficult to put the significance of this day into words, but as President Obama opened his address, humbled, grateful, & mindful, I couldn’t have been more proud.  Those are the virtues of a great leader.

While I enjoyed his speech in its entirety, there were a few moments that really hit me.  I was particularly happy to hear him renew the sense of American values on which this country was founded, equality, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness.  As he proclaimed, “The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness,” I wanted to jump up and cheer.

His speech wasn’t all grand rhetoric and generalities, which is what made it real and timely.  He never tried to downplay the tasks that lie ahead for fixing what is broken in America.  He did do what he is so good at though, and that is being hopeful.  Making it all seem possible.  And not because of some miracle that he was going to bring, but because we as individuals, as American citizens, have the power to come together like so many have before us.  In his words,

Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old.

What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.

Listening to those words I don’t know how you couldn’t feel hopeful and proud to be an American.  I love quotes, especially inspirational ones, and as I took in the inaugural address there were many phrases that touched me, but the one that stood out most was this:

America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.

A country that leads through peace and dignity is one I am happy to be a citizen of.