I have not slept much. My mind kept rerunning things I saw and heard over the previous four days.
Now, on little sleep, having scanned columns and editorials, having listened both last night and this morning to pundits, I realize that I do not need the words of others to help me understand, or to explain to others my reactions.
At one point last night we heard a phrase from Hillary Clinton that was familiar, but we wanted to check.
“America is great because America is good.”
I checked and found the complete statement:
““America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” It is often attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, although those words never appear as such in his writings. It is probably a fair assessment of his belief. And the origin of it ultimately does not matter.
What does it mean for America to be good?
Hillary Clinton’s speech was the culmination of a process, a setting of the stage, for an assertion and a vision that is completely different than what I heard in Cleveland and since from the other party.
Please continue reading.
Hillary Clinton shocked some people when she began to run for the U. S. Senate by going on a listening tour. And yet, that is essential both to understanding who she is and to her vision of what this country is and should be.
During this convention, through the words of others, through videos, those who did not know her, saw that this listening has been an essential part of her entire life. I think back to her graduation at Wellesley when after listening to the official speaker, Sen. Ed Brooke, she left her prepared remarks to respond forcefully with remarks that first brought her to national attention.
We have, somewhat derived from the Protestant Christianity of New England, the erroneous myth of rugged individualism and the self-made man carried to an extreme. In a sense we have seen that distortion brought to its reducto ad absurdum on Donald John Trump.
I am enough of an honest student of American history to know that we have struggled to find a vision to tie us together as a nation, that often the history we use to instruct is itself selective and a distortion. And yet, when we consider the warts of our Founders, the wrong and even destructive actions at different points in our past, it is part of the genius of our system that we have been able to grow and to become more inclusive and — and we certainly heard this the past four days - more loving in our understanding of our nation and our vision.
People focus on the issue of “trust.” I think to some degree the pundits get things wrong. Let me approach this from the standpoint of a teacher. I learned very early in my teaching career that trust was an essential part of effective learning in school. I have since told my students that they will need to trust me, but I know they will first need to see that I trust them. I think much of the narrative of this convention, looking back at her lifetime, and we have seen that in her listening she has demonstrated her trust of and belief in the people before her. Perhaps that is one reason as ordinary people who she have encountered along the way are so firm in the testimony they give on her behalf. She listens to them, she hears them, she sees them — not just as an illustration of political issue, but as individual persons, and her remaining in touch with them during the years since means that she acknowledges what she has learned from them.
I see in the construction of this convention a way of enabling us of putting these pieces together. Let me offer one clear example. We heard about her early work going out and finding out why the school population did not reflect census figures of school-aged children, and she found “disabled” children who were not attending school. The work she did first in documenting, and then advocating, helped lead to the landmark legislation of Public Law 94-192, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, later restated as Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the basic federal commitment to Special Education. We now have a constitutional right for those identified with disabilities of any kind to an education in “the least restrictive environment.”
Now think of a woman coming out and walking across the stage to tell her story, walking on two metal legs replacing the flesh and bone legs lost when her helicopter was hit in a combat situation. You had a woman who was a wounded combat veteran, who proudly wore a skirt, with no shame to show what in the past would be considered a disability that would push her into the shadows.
E pluribus unum — out of many, one.
That ‘many’ does not exclude — on race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, religion or lack of faith, familial background.
We are a people that is diverse. Our diversity enriches us, it does not diminish us.
In our history as a nation, we are at our best when we surrender our “rugged individualism” and come together in common purpose. Think of all those who volunteered on Dec 8 and 9, 1941, after Pearl Harbor. Now think of the more than 500 who responded to Chief David Brown in Dallas and have applied to become part of the police department.
We heard stories of individuals, stories that Hillary Clinton heard and to which she reacted and which she included in the efforts she made to improve their lives and the lives of others.
It comes from her motivation, which has always flowed from her sense of faith. That explains HER motivation, but she does not insist that the rest of us have the same source of motivation, so long as we work together for a common purpose.
The brilliance of this convention is not that it reintroduced her to the American people, although certainly many got their first glimpses beyond the surface of someone who is in many ways a very private person, something that also flows to some degree from being rooted in her faith.
Rather, this convention established a different frame — that Hillary Clinton has a lifetime of service that starts by listening to the hopes and frustrations of others, and then serves as the most meaningful kind of change agent — one who does claim or even attempt to do it by herself, but instead attempts to serve as a means of bringing people together for a common purpose to benefit the greatest number she can, or rather, that together we can.
I have lived through some of this, remembering the changes we made as a result of seeing the pain of those suffering under segregation and not just in the South. I lived in New York City at the time of Stonewall.
We heard stories of ordinary people. We heard the history of a remarkable woman, one of whom I wrote using modified words of Teddy Roosevelt back on June 10, in a piece I titled Hillary - the woman in the arena.
But even in that piece I missed something, something that is now clear after this brilliant convention. Something that became clear in the powerful words by Rev. Barber about the heart of America. Something that became clear in the sacrifices of those who served for others, and the cost of limbs and of lives, who did that on behalf of others, and who remembered those others.
We are in this together. It is not just Hillary Clinton being in the arena that matters. It is her challenge and invitation to the rest of us: that we join her in that arena.
It means that she and we acknowledge the contributions of others, as multiple speakers did to the efforts the Sanders movement.
It is not a question of liberal or conservative. It is not a question of ideology. It is a question of humanity.
We may remember brilliant digs at Donald Trump. That has some political salience, and is a necessary part of the politics. But that is not what moved me, and that really matters
Think of the key words from Mr. Khan:
“You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”
Because we do not advance the goals and ideals of America by rugged individualism, because none of us is truly self-made. At some point each of us understands this in our own lives, unless one is a sociopath. We heard of the sacrifice of parents who sacrificed for a better life for their children. We all can grasp that. We heard of the sacrifice of first responders, who run towards danger rather than away from it. We heard of small sacrifices, of teachers who brought extra food for students, and bought them pencils and papers out of their own insufficient salaries. We are reminded that those who seek to serve as teachers are often overburdened by crushing debt from the education they must pay for themselves in order to be trained to teach others.
We were reminded that for this country to succeed we need all of us, we must hear all of our stories, we must see all of our people as children of God. We need to recognize that people want to come here for a better life, often starting with the simple idea of getting an education for one’s children.
Two of my grandparents were born in Europe. They came here for better lives, for themselves and for the progeny they hoped to have.
I see that in the lives of the very diverse students I have taught.
There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton is the most prepared person in my lifetime, and perhaps in history, to take on the challenges of the Oval Office. Yes, the “experience” of the positions she has held is part of it. But the preparation started by the person she has been since she was first challenged by her Methodist Youth Minister who took her to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. Her “preparation” is a lifetime of listening, of truly SEEING others as individuals, and understanding that the impact of the policies we pursue, the words we offer,the actions we attempt, are reflected in the lives of all the people we have encountered, and the lives of millions we may not yet have encountered personally. It is a “preparation” that makes clear that she knows she cannot do it by herself, that to achieve the goals requires cooperation, that at times progress may be incremental, and one has to be willing to accept those increments even as we strive for more.
To me, this convention, perhaps more than informing us about Hillary Clinton was reminding of us of ourselves. It was a challenge for us to enter the arena, in whatever way we can, on behalf of all that matters to us.
We, not I.
Not by individual action, but by coming together.
The wearing down of the hard rock by the millions and billions of drops of multiple individual actions by as many of us as are willing to be inspired or provoked, to believe that WE can still make a difference, that our union is not yet perfect, even as it is more perfect because it includes more people.
It is a challenge to me as I consider what I next do in my own life, both on a personal level, within my marriage, and in the work I may do, and in the actions I take in my ordinary processes of life.
The final speech was not soaring rhetoric. It had some digs at the opponent. But all of that is the ground on which the thrust of the entire convention presented.
We have a choice.
We have a candidate who seeks not just our votes, but our personal commitment, to completing our more perfect union.
I will leave to others to parse individual words and speeches. Just as I will leave to others to decide what tags might be appropriate for this post, beyond the few I will add.
As in our own lives, we should not compartmentalize or put things in silos, but rather recognize the importance of wholeness, a wholeness that starts with the heart, that can feel not only our own pain but the pain of others, that seeks to connect us through both that pain and the joys of the success of others and of our society as we move towards the more perfect union.
This is my reflection on the past four days.
I share it as a way of opening my own heart.
I hope I hear the beating of your heart as well.
Peace.