Happy Inauguration Day!

It's about time.

Our family joins the world today as we watch the Inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama. We pray for his safety, and the safety and well being of his family, our nation and world. We eagerly await his Executive order to close the doors at Guantanamo Bay and end this era of American shame.

This is the first President our daughter will have any personal memory of. It means so much to me that it will be Barack Obama.

I was describing to my wise Auntie today the difficulty I was having with telling my two year old baby about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The "problem" is that she is innocent of any idea about racism or racial disharmony. In her school there are children from all over the world; many speak different languages at home. She has no idea that this could ever be considered unusual, or problematic. My wise Auntie told me to tell her that Dr. King was a good man and talk about what he did for all human rights. Good advice. So I told my baby that Dr. King was a good, brave man and he helped everybody learn to love each other better. He wanted all the children to grow up feeling strong and loved. Oh, she says, like Jesus!

Yes, I told her. Like Jesus.

So we pray for peace tonight and in the days to come. Especially for the safety of President Obama and his family, that he not be one of our young martyrs. We want him here for the long haul, for the lifetime of service and inspiration he can provide for the fierce urgency of now, and tomorrow.

Happy Inauguration Day. Joyous return to the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of Human Rights, the tenets of the Geneva Convention. Happy birthday to Dr. King. Raise a glass with me to a better future for all of our children, wherever you are today.

Here's a link to Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, if you'd like to take a moment and remember where we have been and what we have hoped for.