HISTORY TEST

Shall we be released?
I saw the light come shinin’ this morning, when we awoke to greet Election Day. After a long, long weekend of rain and dark clouds, this Tuesday dawned bright – the light sparkled and glinted off the remaining raindrops as the sun rose higher, over the tops of the redwoods. And we rose, had a coffee and a look at the many clan-mails coming in on our computer terminals, and then dressed in a hurry and headed down to the village fire station to become part of this historic referendum.
I thought of our youngest grandson, Seamus McCune Smith Blau, whose great ancestral namesake was the first black doctor of medicine licensed to practice in New York, so many years ago. Now his parents, and the rest of us, have the privilege of choosing the first black President of the United States; some day perhaps Seamus will be the first Blau President!
But the great hope for our country as we await the election results tonight is that we may be released from the tyranny of the madmen who have plunged this historically Greatest Nation On Earth into near-darkness.
I do not imagine that Barack Obama will be the answer to all the cries of the poor, the hungry, the wounded in war; but the rising up of the American people to vote for Change is a fine thing to observe.
The firehouse crew told us there had not been such a huge turnout for the polls there in Boulder Creek in their memory – and given the apparent age of many of them, that’s a long remembrance.
The test will not be over, if Obama is elected today; it will be just beginning, for him and his chosen band; and it will not be an easy or short road to justice and peace.
But, O God, let us have the opportunity to place our feet on that road, and strive to turn this poor old world around.