Dreaming

I had a dream that I was friends with Michelle Obama the other night. There wasn't anything really profound about it. Nothing prophetic or anything like that. I just woke up with a sense of kinship to her. It was very interesting--I've never dreamed about a political figure before. I didn't want to over analyze the dream, nothing big happened, we just talked on the phone about meeting for lunch. I told her if she even needed to talk I was here for her, mundane stuff like that.

What I did realize when all of the dreamstate feelings dissapated was this: she is in a position that no other woman of color has ever found herself in. And even though she is self-assurred, self-confident, and self aware; she needs the support of the women of this country. She is faced with one of the toughest jobs in the country--that of a wife and mother of one of the most powerful families in the known world. I can't even begin to imagine the pressures that she will be privy to, the decisions she will aid our president elect in making, the fears she will have to calm in her daughters...and the task of giving them a semi-normal life. Whatever "normal" is.

My father said the morning after the election,

"There are things we can expect and things we should not expect...The apathy we thought was there has vanished. We can expect a fast-paced transition from the Bush Presidency to the Obama Presidency. We can expect changes in the way the world community relates to the United States: This country will regain respect it has lost over the past 8 years. This country will have respect in places where none existed before.We can expect changes in the way business is conducted locally, nationally and internationally. We can expect an end to the senseless deaths of American citizens in a Middle East war that should never have been started.

We should not expect President Barack Obama to work miracles: that is out of the province of presidential power. It has taken us 232 years to arrive at this moment. It will take time to correct some of the failed policies under which we now live. We should not expect our economy to turn on a dime. We should not expect an immediate withdrawal of American forces from Iraq and Afghanistan – it will take time. We should not expect an end to the hunger and poverty that so many people of the world live in today. We should not expect an end to global warming.It will all take time.

We can expect President Barack Obama to provide a stimulus for change in our nation and our world. We can expect President Obama to create a unity and a hope which this country has not experienced in 40 or more years. We can expect President Obama to call on each of us for patience and effort and prayer. What we need to do right now is to pray for President Obama’s strength and courage, commitment and faith, integrity and humility.

We must pray for his wife Michelle to guard his doubt, to comfort the loneliness of such power, and to love the man of faith that she married. We must pray for the protection of his children and his wife and for him from the evil about in the world today.We must pray for God to order President Obama’s steps, to provide for his strength, and to protect his health.We must pray for unity in our country and peace in our world."

These were the thoughts that were on my mind the morning of that dream. I think that was the point. They need our support. They need our prayers. They need our power as the citizens of this country to hold them accountable. They need us to be a people they can lead.

My pastors often say, that they are not the pastors of followers, they pastor a church of leaders--those of us who are leaders in our own way, of our homes, on the job, in our faith communities and neighborhoods, must continue to lead and help the Obamas rebuild a country that we can continue to be proud of.