In the onslaught of Palin diaries, I feel a little drowned in drama. I thank the fellow Kossacks who have written diaries stressing a return to action. I wrote this diary as my own personal refocus on why I'm passionate and frustrated with this election, why I'm revved up to campaign, and why I'm here at Dailykos.
I met Barack Obama and the instant is forever burned into my memory.
I was one of the 20+ thousand people who showed up to hear him speak in Denver before the caucus, and one of the unlucky ones to not get inside the venue. I literally got just inside the doors before they slammed then shut, and those of us trapped in the foyer were very reluctantly driven back outside. Though I remain to listen to it outside on a lacrosse field, where Barack Obama himself came to greet us BEFORE taking the stage. By visiting both overflow rooms and us outside, he made himself nearly an hour late for his own speech.
Hearing him speak of imagining the future we wish to see, I literally said to myself "I imagine myself shaking this man's hand." After the rally, I waited.... and waited...
...and waited...
Follow me over the jump
Nearly two hours later, on his tardy departure from the building, he came out to greet the dozen or so of us still hanging around (some were waiting for the return of items they wanted autographed).
I say this not to toot my own horn, but I am very perceptive about people and personalities. I've served as a chaplain and learned over the years that my gut instincts about people are often spot on.
I shook Obama's hand. He reached forward and took my hand, as I stood just mere inches from him, separated by a mere waist high gate in a nearly vacant auditorium. For the briefest instant, I was face to face, eye to eye (I'll never forget those eyes) with this amazing man in a very small, intimate group of people. This is going to sound absolutely cheesy, but when I walked away, my knees were week and my whole body felt sort of trembly. A once in a lifetime opportunity, magical and historic, an indescribale encounter with something far beyond myself.
What I know, without hesitation, without one drop, one iota, one smidge, one microscopic twinge of doubt, that he is indeed everything we dare hope him to be. He is as sincere, as intelligent, as courageous, as audacious, as warm, as friendly, as down to earth, as articulate... and as Presidential as anything we can imagine. In no one else have I held such great optimism and such belief. I am nobody, just a voter, a small potatoes volunteer, a paltry drop in the bucket of those who need this government to change -- and this is the biggest endorsement I can give. For what it's worth.
But even before I shook his hand, this is the essay I wrote, newly expanded into the greater narrative of why I'm voting for Barack Obama.
I never work better than when I am inspired by anger; for when I am angry, I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart. ~ Martin Luther
I have always been a progressive, though I did not know it. Before the candidacy of Barack Obama for President, I was a mere token observer of politics, unwilling to get caught up in its messy turmoils. In 2004 I was a grad student on the southside of Chicago and where I first heard rumblings of this man with the unusual name. I remember, distinctly, mentioning to my classmates that if Barack Obama and Russ Feingold would both run for President in 2008, I would be hard pressed to choose between them.
During the primaries, I was living in Colorado, in the Denver area. And I started becoming plugged into politics, tracking this man I'd heard so much about in Chicago. For the first time in my life, I wanted to become involved -- and like so many young adults like myself, it wasn't simply action. First we became informed, learning about the candidate, his stances, learning first hand how the process of the primaries worked, about grassroots organizing, and then became involved. Education and action, with the more we learned making us more energized.
As I began making phone calls, knocking on doors, blogging regularly on the Obama website and lurking frequently on DKos, a connection became clear. For a couple of years now, I've lived my life within the framework of faith as defiant hope. It is my humble observation that this campaign is not only infused with defiant hope, but embodies it as well. Hope alone is a desire coupled with an expectation of obtainment, or to expect with confidence. To defy is to challenge to do something considered impossible. Defiance is not anger (or in recent days, disgust), though can be spurred by anger. Defiance causes you to focus your energy into activity. Your soul cries out, "You will not define me! I will not be confined by definitions or demographics. You do not determine who I am or what I believe or who I respect."
Defiant hope, therefore, is to challenge what is deemed impossible with expected confidence that one will succeed. And this is the very heart and soul of the Obama campaign. This defiant hope is the driving force and catalyst to the "fierce urgency of now." Defiance is our realization that we are more than we are given credit, than the status quo can see. Hope is the sensation that it can actually be achieved. This is the defiant hope of the little girl in the barbershop who told Michelle Obama that Barack’s presidency means she can imagine anything for herself, for she knows she is greater and more capable than the world has told her.
Consider for a moment, your reaction to Obama and his message – the heart swelling with passion and pride, your mind suddenly imagining the world as it could be, a dream of something different and the bursting sense that you could actually be part of history. This is hope. Consider, also, the clenched knot in your gut, the burning sense that you must do something, to speak out.
Consider your frustration and anger at the distorted attacks leveled against him. An unnamed sensation stirs in your gut, and you know you cannot be idle. So you pick up the phone, you knock on a door, you buy a bumper sticker, you donate to the campaign, or you speak with a coworker or family member without regard to the potential faux pas of discussing politics. This, my friends, is defiance.
To describe the momentum and activity of this grassroots movement goes far beyond a few well-turned words in a speech. Those who would dismiss us as a "cult" on the one side and those who consider us "activists" on the other realize not the power of Barack Obama, for he instills in us not simply defiance and activity against the status quo and not simply hope, dreams of what could be. Both accusations sense part of the message, but not its whole. The one side perceives our hope-mongering ways, with the misconception that somehow we are fueled by dreams alone. The other reacts to the defiance, the grassroots activity usually only undertaken by activists. But they do not yet perceive the defiant hope.
His message and person is turning us all into activists for a common purpose and common goals, because we feel, deep to our core, that we must do something and by doing something, we can create what we imagine. The inspiration of Barack Obama is that we believe our activity is enacting our dreams. "Yes we can" is not simply the rallying cry of the passive, nor simply a catchy slogan for dreamers. It is a direct response to the "chorus of cynics" who insist on parsing phrases, delineating demographics and invalidating inspiration. "Change" is not our ideal, but what is happening because every day more people recognize the dawning of defiant hope in their souls and they act. This is no mere bandwagon, for we are no hangers-on, no coattail riders. We pull this wagon, with blood, sweat, time and tears. With Hope in our veins and fire in our hearts, they will not stem the tide! Obama/Biden 2008!