The shape of change

In this difficult day, we face challenges as a nation and as a people. We have always believed in America. When this sense of dignity was confronted in our past, we shifted our politics away from Watergate, our soldiers out of Vietnam and our country toward the immortal dream of two white brothers and a black man from Georgia long after their blood was spilled. With each step, with each turning of the page in the American experience it was we, the people of this nation, that called for change.

The burden of responsibility has fallen once again on the people of this nation to not be afraid. Change is a scary thing. It is cold feet as we walk down the wedding aisle, the tickle of nervousness before we bring a newborn baby to our heart, the odd sense of longing before we take the first steps into our new home. It is this slight taste of fear and initial resistance to change that makes us human, that let us know we are breaking from the past. Then we touch their lips, we hold the baby to our chest and we smell the new memories as they begin to form on the empty floorboards and pale walls of a new home. Without change we cannot move towards betterment and without fear in the face of that change we are assured only the fa