A new day...

Yesterday afternoon, Rachel surprised us by saying, "Barack Obama." It came from nowhere, in the midst of her playing, and it caught Sara and me by complete surprise. At two years old, surely she didn't have any sense of the enormous significance of that name, but it was a name she'd been hearing on the radio, as Sara and I eagerly listened to election news, and probably in the conversations we'd been having all day, too.

Still it surprised us to hear that name, "Barack Obama," in her little two-year-old voice, as clear and articulate as you or I might say it, there in the midst of doing the things two-year-olds do. She didn't look up at us or anything -- didn't look for a reaction or any feedback, as she often does when trying something new -- just went on with her business. It was as if she were practicing saying those new and unfamiliar words, recognizing somehow that they were significant. Sara and I looked at each other, wide-eyed and smiling.

And today we have a new president-elect: Barack Obama.

It fills me with joy to think that Barack Obama will be the first president Rachel will remember. She won't remember this day. She won't remember the ugly campaign. She won't remember today's headlines or the endless commentary about the significance of yesterday's decision. But she will remember something of President Obama. His face will be the last one in the long string of pictures of U.S. presidents high on the wall in her first grade classroom. His will be the face she colors when learning about presidents, and she might not use the "flesh" crayon that I used, but maybe a shade of brown.

It fills me with such hope and joy to know that Rachel will only know a world where someone like Barack Obama can get elected President of the United States. It is my prayer today that she'll know a world where diplomacy, not military action, is the first response; where health care is accessible to all who need it, not a commodity available only to a privileged few; where poverty and hunger are unacceptable, and efforts to change systems that perpetuate suffering are considered a priority; where women and persons of color can go wherever their aspirations take them; where those who are gay or lesbian are afforded the same rights and privileges that heterosexuals have long taken for granted.

I'm fully aware that we do not need another Messiah. We have one of those, and Jesus is the only one we need. Everyone else -- Barack Obama included -- is a human being, with strengths and weaknesses, capable of great things and prone to make mistakes. Still, this election gives me hope for a new direction for the United States of America, and new hope for peace and justice in the world. Today I'm offering a prayer of thanksgiving, and especially a prayer for healing and for unity.