This is equity that their children will be aided by and Orange County has, no doubt, been a better place because these folks lived here for a long time. Bush’s “thousand points of light” or JFKs “ask not what your country can do for you.” I have been thinking about these promises Gorman highlights because during the inauguration, Habitat of Orange County bought back a house from a long time homeowner who had been in the home a long time and this family was able to cash in a significant amount of equity from the sale of their Habitat home. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.Īll inaugurations are events that attempt to consecrate the best of our values to the work of the future. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. This inauguration lifted up these civic promises at a time when the country seems far from a “more perfect union.”Īnd yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine,īut that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.

And children seem to be caught in the middle of all of these tragedies without school or other supports. The best parts of the American founding documents do the same, and I was reminded of the preamble to the constitution: “We the people in order to form a more perfect union… secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” This moral vision of a society whose citizens are safe, flourishing, and able to pass that flourishing to their children comes from the juicy center of the American dream, for sure, but this year has chipped away at each of those promises. To accomplish all this with one poet and one poem was extraordinary, as she was clear that this is a country full of powers and tensions that pull in so many directions, tensions that have been with us from the beginning. Her piece touched on the moment that America seems to be in, acknowledged the difficulties swirling around us, and elevated those parts of the American project that might offer us all hope. If you have not seen or read the piece, here is the link. Like many others, I watched the inauguration and was blown away by the poet Amanda Gorman.

The hill we climb meaning