A Site That Never Fails To Inspire…
I took this photo driving home from the class I teach at the Catholic University School of Business last night. As I sat there at the traffic light, it got me thinking about where America is today.
It seems these days that for so many Americans - too many - there is a sense of growing darkness and gloom about the state of our nation now and for the future. But looking at the Capitol tonight and thinking of our history and how we have been through so much in only 246 years as a nation, I’m immediately struck by the fact there is nothing we cannot overcome. We have packed a lot of challenges to our democracy into these two and half centuries. History shows us this (see my review on James Monroe - read that book - those were intensely challenging times, much more than today).
Therefore, I believe despite the heightened - indeed, at times, irrational and hysterical - political tensions, the loud and emotional debates about the very fabric and future of our country, we need to remember there stands this majestic building - a place, when created, was unlike any other in the world. A place where we send someone from our community to represent us, to speak for us, to argue and debate our collective future guided by our inspired Constitution, our mutual commitment to the Rule of Law, and our passionate common love for and defense of freedom and democracy. This building is that unique institution that has inspired so many other countries to try to replicate what we have - and it is a place where deadly despots and dictators around the world for 246 years have loathed, feared, and hated.
This is still the greatest nation in the world because we have the freedoms we have every day - and respect the freedoms of everyone else around the world. We will work through all the challenges. It is what we do in America and has always done. And that leaves me believing our greatest years are ahead of us, not behind us, and we will, as Ronald Reagan would remind us, remain that Shining City on a Hill. What a blessing to be able to be reaffirmed in all these beliefs on a cold winter night in February driving home.
