Angels among us
Things are discouraging on many fronts, but history tells us there is reason to hope. We haven’t survived 250 years by always getting things right— by always getting along and always seeing the best in ourselves and each other. When you look at where we’ve been, it’s actually remarkable that we’ve made it this far.
In our greatest moments of struggle, we see people in the past wrestling with the same disillusionment we feel today—during the fight for independence, the Civil War, the long women’s rights and Black civil rights movements, and so on. We endure and ultimately overcome not because we are strong in ourselves, but because our ideals have a staying power stronger than the hope of any one person.
I think someday soon we’ll come to the other side of this and realize that, although damage was wrought, our ideals survived, and Americans became wiser and truer in some immeasurable but important way.
During the Revolution, a man wrote Thomas Jefferson and asked, “Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?” I do not know if Jefferson replied, but the sentiment endured.
In 2001, G.W. Bush said, “An angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.”
In 2013, after Boston [marathon bombing], Obama described the perpetrators as “small, stunted individuals who would destroy instead of build,” and contrasted them with what actually sustains us: “our faith in each other, our love for each other, our common creed that cuts across whatever superficial differences there may be—that is our power. That’s our strength. That’s why a bomb can’t beat us.”
I think an angel still rides in the whirlwind—not one angel, but countless better angels working together to keep the ideals of America alive for today and for tomorrow. Keep believing in America. She ain’t done yet.
Excerpted from an email from Dakoda Pettigrew