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A word with the president
By Joy Jittann Moore

Barack Obama’s election as the 44th President of the United States of America has prompted more than the usual concerns for democratic leadership in our contemporary times.

The reality—that he will be the first African American to serve in this capacity—raises expectations on a variety of fronts. Admittedly, I am one who did not think often of addressing a president. However, being an African-American, from Chicago no less, who is also experiencing for the first time a president who is “my age,” prompts a gratitude for the opportunity from United Methodist News Service to consider what I might say to the President of the United States of America.

President Obama, I would like to say that the system into which you presently find your vocation is defined more by power than by nationality, race, or political affiliation. You know this. It may be well for the rest of us to recognize how systems work as well as acknowledge the challenge—even to the U.S. government—of the ideals that distinguish the American project. Should you operate from these ideals, in spite of the system, the hope that you called forth may very well thrive.

History has a way of remembering not the best-laid plans but the surprising occurrences. History has been made. And, to be sure, that is over. The next memories are not so much made, as they will result from the events that follow.

To seize your moment is neither to yield to the temptation to make history nor to see your role as a “black” president. Rather it is to live each day, to consider each decision, to speak each word with the gravity of your role as world leader. The door through which you have walked needs not a prophet, but a priest; not a lobbyist, but a leader; not a dreamer, but a doer. That is, those upon whose shoulders you now stand have sounded the alarm that cried for the opportunity to do a job. You now have that opportunity …to do the job. There can be no better description of the potential for leadership than its demonstration.

Remember who you are. One of my colleagues wisely accessed the breadth of wisdom in a simple consideration you uniquely have at your disposal. If, as you deliberate what is suitable for justice, you would but keep in mind what would serve your grandmother from Kansas and your grandmother from Kenya, the potential to do no harm is enhanced.

And, as you remember the women in your life, it will be my prayer for you personally, that as the world comes to call you a good president, Michelle will be able to continue to call you a good partner, and Malia and Sasha will be able to continue to call you a good parent. No job should undermine the gift a human being has in family—even President of the United States. To remember this part of your person will keep you in touch with the poorest moms, the most tormented fathers, and the truest ideals of children’s naïveté. Find ways to take self-care in order that you might care for others.

I am a practicing United Methodist Christian, so I will pray for you, as I do all the leaders and citizens of the world. I do not expect you to make America and the Christian church a single entity. Pardoning my metaphor above, you are not a priest, but you are a president. That you are a Christian should be evident not in a verbal claim, but a constantly demonstrated hope borne not of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s Dream, but the Creator’s intention.

For the people of God, this strategy of hope is narrated in the biblical story that begins, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Such hope is born in a present that rightly remembers the past.

You called forth this hope, moving us from claiming, “I have a dream” to the mantra, “Yes, we can.” Such hope is not born in politics, or nation or race. It is the very DNA of creation. Nevertheless, to identify the source of this hope is the task of the church.

The task of a nation is to act honorably as evidence of the reality that such is not merely wishful thinking or philosophical idealism. Rather, it is the very potential of the world to practice justice.

As your sister in Christ, I will pray for you. As a citizen of the United States, I will look to you to demonstrate in leadership the best of American ideals. As a woman of color, I will remain grateful, that you—a man who already has exhibited great intellect and intuition—have said yes to this role now, given the enormity of the problems facing the American public and even the global public.

I will be among those citizens who call you to the hope you campaigned on. Not against you, but with you, to hold you up to the ideals you held up for us. And who knows but that you have been called to this place for such a time as this.

 

Joy Moore is an ordained elder of the West Michigan Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and associate dean of the Center for Lifelong Learning in the Duke University Divinity School in Durham, N.C. This commentary was written for the United Methodist News Service.



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