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Lea & Liz: Our Day in the Sun, Part 2

July 21st, 2008

We last left Lea at Furman, poised to listen to President Bush speak…

For a moment, I don’t think it mattered whether you supported him or not. We were all Americans there and we supported the fact that we HAVE a president. A person that WE choose to lead us, to guide us, to symbolize what we are as a country, who we are and who we want and need to be. We were a small group representing the whole of America. There were protestors, supporters, students, parents, guests and we were all there together ready to hear what President Bush had to say to the graduates and to us.

Here is a link to the whole text of President Bush’s speech at Furman University.

He spoke of simple things, family, faith, service to a greater cause. The little things that are really the big things in life. At the end of the BIGGEST job he will ever hold in his life, he spoke of the things that truly matter in this life. Things that were much more familiar to me than sitting in a VIP area. He spoke about being a husband, a father, and a dutiful son. He spoke of his past as a recovering alcoholic and the wisdom in avoiding temptations that leave you empty and unfulfilled. He challenged all to be serving citizens, fiscally responsible, and accountable to others.

It made me think more seriously about what I will do in November. Who I will vote for and why I will cast my vote for that person. The President is just a person (fallible and human), but there is so much more than that. There is an idea begun in the hearts and minds of men and women who came here and left all they knew behind for the very freedoms that I live and breathe and take for granted. The President is one person that will represent all of us “we the people”. And whether we vote for that person or not, he/she will be our leader for a time. That idea must be respected, that position is so much more than the many decisions that they make and perhaps the HUGE decisions that get the most press are not really the HUGE decisions that really matter at the end of the day.

I see Sovereignty in that we listened to Victor Hugo’s literary masterpiece Les Miserables on c.d. all the way home from Greenville. It is a story about a man who is so much more than the decisions he has made. A man who can forgive and who is transformed by forgiveness. A man of courage, self sacrifice, but mostly a man who understands Grace and gives it when it is most undeserved.

The novel is set against the background of a time of revolution and war. It is a time of great injustice and great division in a country. However the story shows that the inward war that a person fights is what truly is of the utmost importance. The small acts of courage and grace from one man ARE the whole of the story. It is not the grander scheme of turmoil, poverty, and injustice that touches us. It is when we see how loving others well and extending mercy to your neighbors can be far greater than all the injustices that plaque this world.

Entry Filed under: This I Believe