I had a great time yesterday at the Obama rally in my neighborhood. I volunteered and was put on the “line” detail. I greeted people standing in line and informed them about the search procedures up ahead. I got to watch a gigantic line of thousands of people move into the stadium. In training, we were instructed never to run, to remain an example of calm friendliness, no gum chewing, no swearing. The goal was to locate, assist & seat any people with special disabilities. VIP’s were people, who for one reason or another, were not able bodied. When in doubt, smile.
There were two exciting moments for us. One when we saw his plane very close to the ground, on final decent, headed toward the Sarasota Bradenton Airport. It flew right over my house! From the stadium we could see clearly the “O” painted on the tail. Then the Obama buses passed us. The crowd, in line, got excited and started to rush toward the entrance. Picture little old ladies decked out in campaign buttons and hats and scarves, arms akimbo, bags flying, trying to run in clumsy sandals! I had a small memorable moment where I helped step in to slow down the crowd. Whoa!!! Everyone will get in, no need to hurry, all said with a smile, all said in fun. It was fun. I saw, in a split second, how things can change, how even little old ladies can turn aggressive. ….Never run in a crowd, good advice.
There is a sense of community one must adopt when surrounded by people which is distinctly different from “Every man for himself”. The able bodied stand while the frail and elderly sit. I believe this is the difference between the two campaigns. From the Republican side I keep hearing “Let them take care of themselves.”, “I want to keep all my own money, no more taxes”.” Let the rich get rich and the poor “take what’s coming to them””, as if being rich is a virtue and being poor is a crime. This must be a remnant of thinking from old England with it’s debtors prisons. The Republican dogma seems have become that money will indeed get you into Heaven!
My experience, volunteering at the Obama Rally in Sarasota, was most telling of the difference between the two presidential candidates in 2008. It was fun and easy for me because it was a kind and generous atmosphere. We had to move 12,000 people in as quickly as possible, everyone had to be searched, there were a couple of uncomfortable rules like no chairs or food allowed. It took less than two hours. I was among the last twenty to enter. I felt personally rewarded to see the end of the line knowing that everyone who stood in line was able to get inside. Goal accomplished!
After his speech, Obama shook hands with the crowd. I was about 15 feet away but didn’t feel like shoving because then then everyone would shove. Being close was enough for me. Helping the event was enough for me. It struck me that humility is the quality Barack Obama embodies. True humility, is an ancient Eastern virtue foreign to most Westerners. It feels and looks and sounds strange to Westerners. I have, late in life, realized the power and value of the Eastern concept of humility. Humility allows us to care for the young and elderly because we realize we are all young and elderly in our time. Fortune is often fleeting. Best to be mindful of the fickle finger of fate and practice kindness because the atmosphere you create will circle round and come up behind you in the future, especially in a crowd or in traffic. When I hear Obama speak, I hear a man who knows that he is a part of something bigger than he is. Obama is the opposite of arrogant. That is why he can be so relaxed, simply because he is telling the truth and has nothing to hide. It takes no extra energy to be truthful and kind! It is the easy way, this idea is contagious.
I was trying to imagine how it was for him. Flying across the country seeing crowd after crowd of humanity, 600,000,000 people in the US. There are so many of us, people, all different kinds of people. We are diverse and disparate. He wants to lead us. That scares some people who are stuck in the “dog eat dog” mentality of early pioneer thinking. Today there is a different kind of frontier to conquer, not everyone can hunt for food anymore. We have to eat farmed animals and stand in lines, we have to share the plenty because if we don’t, we will panic and create “a scarcity” when in fact here is “a plenty”. Example being the stock market. A healthy economy is when money flows from one person to the next, not when it molders in Uncle Scrooge’s vaults. The food will rot in the fields if we don’t cooperate and figure out how to use our combined talents to get it to the tables. Y o u c a n ‘ t e a t m o n e y . The new frontier is all of us learning how to live, all together, well, all 600,000,000 of us, we, are the new frontier.
We have come to the final days of this 2008 campaign and we are being confronted by the most ugly and narrow of “Black and White” thinking, no pun intended. The truth is never “either” .. “or”. The real truth is always somewhere in between extremes requiring intelligent critical thinking because the truth is often complicated. That is why sound bites and talking points are mostly less than truthful. I am tired of the words, slogans, tired of the contest. But I am going to volunteer one more day to help change us from an uncaring selfish land to a land of possibility and inclusion, like the rally. I believe Obama will save us from ourselves by the example he sets, then the rest will be done by we, the people. It’s a change of direction, mind and heart, or maybe a return to what was intended in the first place.
Karle
