Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Remembering a more gentle time

I was going through some articles I’d saved because of how they spoke to me. A piece titled The President Who Loved by Ann Patchett that appeared in the January 30, 2017 issue of Time magazine affected me even more powerfully today, although it saddened me as well.

Patchett says that love was not something she would have thought to look for in a president, but that she found that for eight years President Obama gave the American people an example of careful consideration, compassion, rigorous intelligence—and love. She misses it and wonders how she will do without it.

She reminds us that Obama gave more Presidential Medals of Freedom than any other president, saving the last one for Joe Biden, his vice president.

She points out that just like hate, love seeps in over time. She faces the new administration with fear of the future but also with gratitude for the way Obama saw the good in people, how he loved. She sees our job now as living up to the love he showed.

I watch too much news. I think I’ll spend more of my time reading words that serve to lift up rather than beat down.


Access Patchett’s complete article by googling The President Who Loved, Ann Patchett. It’s worth it.

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