AltBrothers

Like many of you, I was pretty anxious to follow the Super Tuesday votes for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. The seesaw of won-states between Barack and Hillary had my heart feeling like I was following a championship match. In short, I had for a moment, taken the bait of the MSM (mainstream “news” media). Super Tuesday was the thing, with California and New York - the big kahunas - making or breaking the candidates.

Well to a degree that is true. Barack and Hillary have to get all the votes that they can. Each one is trying to get more votes than the other in order to say “I should be President”.

But Super Tuesday 2008 really is a very very small thing in the larger scheme of our times and in the opportunities we have been presented in this election; opportunities which transcend beyond the election.

I haven’t yet read his books (I know, SHAME on me!) but Barack has already re-ignited an audacious hope within me. This hope is not dependent on him becoming President of the United States in 2009 - but it sure hopes that he does become so! No, the hope that I have is for the “Obama” in every person, the spirit of Obama.

Spirit of Obama? What is that?

I don’t know, I just sense it like I sense it from the words and actions of other people. Take Martin Luther King Jr., or Thurgood Marshall for example, or Mother Theresa. The words they spoke, the lives they lived… it was more than a show. A recognition between souls can happen unbound by time, place or space. Its a spiritual recognition that the person is a messenger, a vessel and the essence and truth of the soul is in the thoughts, words and deeds; it true person is the thought, the emotion, the hope, not the shell called the body.

The shell/body has a role because it both impacts and is impacted by the life experience. The life experience makes imprints in the mind and thoughts, which come out as actions. Actions leave their mark which are called results and results are new life experiences which re-imprint minds and the cycle goes on and on. This is significant in relation to the ideas/thoughts of “change” and “hope”; and the significance is so important that it must be understood to transcend boundaries. More specifically to this Super Tuesday, “win” or “lose” - a higher purpose has come knocking at our doors.

I hope that we Americans (all of us including Latinos, Native Americans, Blacks, Asians, Whites, women, men…) recognize that what life has placed at our door right now is the opportunity to expect and demand better, not just from others around us (especially politicians) but to expect and demand better out of ourselves.

It will be a curse upon us if we allow ourselves to be razzle-dazzled, entertained, scared or distracted by anything and miss or not appreciate the deeper issues in front of us and the opportunity to create new impression-thought-action-experience cycles. We have no shortage of examples of cycles which create alienation, pain, abuse and suffering. These are the things which kill our souls and cause us to kill ourselves and each other on so many levels. And a hyped Super Tuesday pales in comparison to that.

I hope that this presidential race starts a resurgence of interest and *action* among youth and young adults (and I have a special hope for black youth and young adults) to become more informed, involved in public service and to lead for change in civic life. I hope for something that goes beyond Barack or Hillary.

We need ***HUNDREDS*** of more Baracks on neighborhood, district, city, county and state councils. We need them on school boards and in corporate offices and on boards of directors to finally do what is right. Oh and we need in elementary school, junior high, high school and college too.

I hope that a new generation is rising up who are willing to understand the change that comes from changing impression-thought-action-experience cycles and who are willing to commit themselves in every profession, at ever turn to a truth-telling, hope-filled, right-doing, helpful and better world.

And Obama, as a man who is black and more, who transcends not just in the body but in the mind and actions, I vigorously say “thank you” for being a good example of expecting and demanding acting and experiencing the better part of ourselves.