The Evidence of Things Hoped For

1:30 a.m.

Wednesday, November 7

After falling asleep watching the state by state returns come in, I awoke, blurry-eyed, to the sound of Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

"We are awaiting the President's acceptanace speech."

Still in that haze between alseep and awake, I thought for a second, "I must be dreaming."

But then the camera panned to the TV screen and the crowds of people waving flags, jumping up and down, or otherwise elated and I thought, "What?!"

"Whaaat!?"

"WOOOOOOO!"

I immediately straightened up and situated myself on the couch to observe the scene.

The news ticker at the bottom of the screen read: "Barack Hussein Obama elected 44th President of United States."

Some days, I wonder about America.

How you can be a Harvard-trained lawyer, a Senator, a Christian, a family man, a purposeful individual who cares about things like ending wars, bringing our aggressors to justice and making sure everyone -- even the dreaded 47% -- has health insurance, and still be called things like "lazy," "Muslim," and "un-American."

How do you navigate and maintain your sense of self, and more than that -- press on to the highest office in the land -- in a country where a pompous megalomaniac in need of a toupee openly questions your academic credentials, or where the son of your political opponent feels it appropriate to threaten physical violence against you for calling his dad out on the truth?

To be honest, before I saw the words scroll across that news ticker early this morning, I didn't think this sort of America would have re-elected again the man that so many four years ago put their hopes in. I doubted that he would be judged by a fair rubric.

I am ever so happy to be wrong.

And on a day like today, I am ever so happy to be a citizen ... a voting citizen... a voting citizen who stood in line for hours to exercise that right ... in the United States of America.

God bless the President. And God bless us all.