j'aime la vie
Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!
-----Original Message-----
From: Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031(a)aol.com>
To: jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera(a)saipantribune.com>; mark_rabago <mark_rabago(a)saipantribune.com>; editor <editor(a)saipantribune.com>
Sent: Thu, Nov 8, 2012 9:36 am
Subject: OpEd Friday
BELIEVE IN AMERICA
Our title was the slogan of Romney's attempted tripto the White House. He did not make itout of Boston, but the slogan turned out to be the theme we picked up fromObama's victory speech in Chicago.
One of my English classes is off campus in a Collegeconnected to our University, scheduled on a Wednesday, but the Englishdepartment had in the last month two occasions when they asked me to perform anextra task so we ended moving the class to Thursday. The last time we met last week, we asked theclass to make the change permanent.
So this Wednesday, we had a day off in time to watchSingapore's NewsAsia and China's CCTV, State-owned media stations, broadcastthe returns of the US Presidential election. Since China time at midday is EST's 11 p.m., we were wide awake to whatwas billed as a long night of a close and expected drawn-out contest, perhaps,to the last ballot tally in Ohio, Florida, and Virginia. By midnight EST, Obama secured his secondterm in office.
Wednesday morning, I had laid out the corn chowder that was going to be my lunch if Romney somehow managed to squeakthrough, while I had a quarter of a chicken breaded ala Chicago Southside for Obama and the city's stockyards. Of course, I had gone along with NYTimes NateSilver early on in the week to project an Obama landslide inspite of thenail-biting projections of the Atlantic seaboard pundits, so I already had ataste for the chicken.
Mitt Romney's concession speech was pleasantly subduedand conciliatory. We decided to have thesoap and the chicken together while we waited for the man of the hour to takethe podium in Chicago. He bounded intothe stage with the confidence Obama exhibited during his first campaign, andessentially doing a reprise of the "this is your victory" theme heflung to supporters at Grant Park, though this time, he picked up on the GOPtheme, affirmed his belief in America, and gave the message the twist it needed.
A context from my side. "Belief" as an operational word had long been dropped from myvocabulary since we discarded the medieval theological metaphors ofmetaphysics. "Belief" becamewhat one obstinately hangs on to when contrary evidence is presented to refutea closely held truth. Thus, if and whenI say, "I still believe so-and-so," I do so against the wind. We tend to use the word "faith" tosay what is felt deeply in the guts with conviction.
Our Hawaii-born Chicago Southside community organizer turned the Tuesday midnight event into aMidwest revival meeting. He was, ofcourse, preaching to the choir. Theaudience highly energized, already singing the hallelujah chorus, they riproared to the rafters to hear the gospel of their familiar. Obama did not disappoint.
He told his 'congregation' that in this election, they reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over warand depression, the spirit that has lifted the country from the depths ofdespair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each will pursue theirown individual dreams, we are an American family, and we rise or fall togetheras one nation and as one people.
(Editor's note: The full text ofObama's speech is on page _____.)
Heady stuff. I reflexively opened my desk drawer andstarted thumbing through my blue book out of its passport holder. I remember the day in '84, after twelve yearsof green carding it through INS, I took on US citizenship, making our family'sinternational diversity (2 US, 1 Canada, 1 Pea Eye) into an American familyaffair.
It was from a black ghetto on theWestside of Chicago 1967 where I first heard from a Methodist brother theNo-Messiah-Messiah articulation. I hadnever been comfortable with the traditional Christian piety's mythology of asecond coming and the millennial reign of the Christos. So the storyresonated in its emancipating force.
The story was plucked out of John inthe Christian New Testament. Jesus waspassing through one of Jerusalem's pool when he came upon a 38-year oldparaplegic lying on his bed. He askedthe man, the story tells, "Do you want to get well?" The man gives his lifelong excuse of not beingable to get to the hocus-pocus whenthe angel of the Lord comes to stir the waters. The man from Galilee tells him, "Well, why don't you pick up yourbed, and walk?" He did, and hewalked. We did, too, and we walked!
Some characterized Obama as aMiss-yeah, or a Mess-ayah, havingmade promises that he reportedly did not deliver. I included his Grant Park acceptance speechin my Oral English class expanded notebook for practice reading, so I know themessage is different and unmistakable. Yes, WE can! Many Americanswanted the "We" to be an Obama "I".
This second term, Obama was not goingto make the same mistake. As thecrescendo of his preaching intensified, he boomed: "... America's never beenabout what can be done for us; it's about what can be done by us together,through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government... What makes America exceptional are the bondsthat hold together the most diverse nation on Earth, the belief that our destinyis shared...”
By then, misty eyes visited this crustyold coot. We straightened our back,dipped the spoon into the corn chowder, and relished our chicken for theday.
Yes, WE can!
j'aime la vie
Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all,
Celebrate!
