A Million of Us

I wrote this in my head last night when I was supposed to be sleeping. I also spent some time thinking about how to split some hickory logs to create borders for my wife’s rhododendron garden.

A Million of Us

We are a million children of fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers, all who thrived in times other than our own.

We are a million descendants of immigrants, who, as individuals, made the decision to leave what they knew, to make a new future.

We are a million descendants of an Age of Enlightenment, when great thinkers shared new ideas to escape the tyrannies of belief and wealth and corruption.

We are a million descendants of an Age of Enlightenment, when great thinkers shared new ideas to escape the tyrannies of belief and wealth and corruption.

We are a million descendants of families, who learned to thrive in a new world of untamed wilderness.

And we are a million descendants of those who practiced the habits of growth, celebrating its liberty, while hiding its abuses.

We are a million descendants of great men and women, who designed a government and made laws that benefited each of us, instead of benefiting themselves.

We are a million descendants of horrendous crimes and we are the descendants of the victims of those crimes.

We have used the might of an enormous and rich land, and a million individuals of like mind to right great wrongs, and, too often, inflict great harm.

But we are starting to learn, 
That there is much that we will need to know, 
In order to realize our nation’s “state of becoming” in a rapidly changing world,
Instead of recreating a  “state of being” that was lost in some mythical past. 

And we are starting to seek a new enlightenment, 
Of new ideas that will, 
Like before,
Deliver us from the tyrannies of belief and wealth and corruption, 
So that we might live in a land where everyone is healthy and educated,
And free to not only be satisfied with comfort, 
But be inspired to pursue a million dreams.

dfw