I’m not a mom. But I am a daughter. And I know how I got here. My mom’s birthday was yesterday. It was a good one. And we celebrated. I know how she got here. I know how her mother got here. And her mother.
And all those mothers from the beginning. We all got here the same way. All of us. Women. Men. Transgender. We were birthed by strong women.
For those of you who know me in person, or just through this blog or Twitter, you know that this election and administration has rocked me hard.
But this morning, I found a video of the National Moral Revival Poor People’s Campaign Watch Night Service and saw a speech by Valarie Kaur. It gives me hope.
The video is just over six minutes and well worth your time. Especially if you’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the onslaught of changes taking place in this country. The past twenty-four hours has refugees and other immigrants now detained at airports and not being allowed back in the United States after the latest of Trump’s Executive Orders.
Kaur’s website describes her as an award-winning filmmaker, civil rights lawyer, media commentator, Sikh activist, interfaith leader and founder of Groundswell Movement, the nation’s largest multifaith online organizing community.
In other words, she is amazingly awesome! By the way, she will be in Boston on February 9th and 10th at Northeastern University speaking at the New England Interfaith Student Summit.
Kaur’s speech describes some tragic and inspiring personal family history and then goes on to discuss the issues facing our nation currently. She finds cause for optimism.
And so the mother in me asks, what if. What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb? But the darkness of the womb? What if our America is not dead? But a country that is waiting to be born. What if the story of America is one long labor? … What if this is our nation’s great transition? … What does a midwife tell us to do? Breathe. And then push. Because if we don’t push we will die. If we don’t push our nation will die. Tonight we will breathe. Tomorrow we will labor.
If the Statue of Liberty represents our country, then we are a strong woman. Let’s focus. Breathe. Then push like our lives depend on it. Because they do.
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Screenshot: YouTube
