In the early morning of Friday, Nov. 6, I awoke at 6:30 a.m. with only about five hours of sleep. I had been struggling to know what I can write about this week; what could I say that would mean anything?
As with almost everyone in our country, the presidential election had held our attention those days, before Saturday morning’s announcement. Approximately half of my friends, family and neighbors were full of hope before then, while the other half were hurting badly and full of rage. It had been a close race and it was obvious that the results will affect all of our lives for quite some time.
Whether red or blue, we are a nation of good people who truly love our country. Somewhere along the way, we have lost track of how to talk – and LISTEN – to each other, and that is going to have to be something that we must all adopt as our main priority as we move on.
On election day, I found a famous quote that I shared on social media:
“United we stand; divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy the union upon which our existence hangs.”
According to Wikipedia, Patrick Henry used the phrase in his last public speech, given in March 1799, in which he denounced the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, but it is generally attributed to the ancient Greek storyteller Aesop, both directly in his fable “The Four Oxen and the Lion” and indirectly in “The Bundle of Sticks.” Sadly, it applies so aptly to our nation today.
We must allow our democracy to work. We must begin listening to each other in order to learn how we can begin to resolve our differences.
Let’s move forward. Our family, friends and neighbors are still the wonderful, good people we have always known. We can no longer be black, white, brown, red, blue or green. We live in a beautiful, technicolor world, but we must remove the color labels we’ve put on each other and let our love and respect wrap us with the many beautiful things we share and shield us from the differences that separate us until we can peacefully find a way to make them positive influences in our lives. Whatever happens from here on, we must do whatever we can to heal our wounds and become one nation again.
God bless America!
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