Hope overflows

Phil Wall | Do we see bones, or an Army?

‘Only in America’ - these words, often spoken with reference to some kind of weird phenomena or commercial excess, took on a whole new meaning last month. The inauguration of Barak Obama as the 44th President was quite a remarkable spectacle. People from all over the world gathered to celebrate, participate and just be there to say they were there.

One African American woman said to the BBC ‘I can’t believe this is happening so I am going along just to make sure it really does!’ The amazing satellite images from space demonstrated the huge numbers of people as they changed the colours of the green parklands and grey roads into a heaving mass humanity, playing their own role in the drama of American history.

History has indeed been made and it has been a long and often painful journey. Many have paid a high price to challenge the injustice that valued a person by the colour of their skin, enormous sacrifice marked the road to the appointment of America’s first black President. There is so much within this story to inspire us. For all of the aspects of American culture that little European ‘Lefties’ like myself find difficult, it’s capacity for ‘self - reinvention’ seems endless. It is a truly remarkable and wonderful land.

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Tags: hope