The Fierce Urgency of Now
This has been my theme since last week when I attended the funeral of our friends’ daughter, a bright shining star who suffered from Cystic Fibrosis, diagnosed at age two. I talk at length about her on Newsgang (8/20), so I won’t go into too much detail here.
What I took away from the funeral of a girl who managed to live with a debilitating illness yet still graduate with honors from USC, get her masters in Montreal, and be weeks away from her doctorate at Penn State while traveling and speaking as much as she could is that she did not let one day pass without doing every single thing she could to reach her goals and did not allow herself the luxury of being distracted with anything that could bog her down, whether breathing treatments or self-pity.
She was remarkable. And inspiring. Even though I knew her, had seen her every week, worked alongside her for a couple of years, I didn’t know her at all. I didn’t understand all of the challenges that she faced nor did I understand the amazing strength it took her to get through a single day, much less 29 years.
Today was the historic nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for President, alongside Joe Biden for vice president. And last night, Hillary Clinton stepped up and gave the speech every single Democrat needed to hear, on both sides of the primary battle. As an Obama supporter, I was furious with her conduct during the primaries and with the way her concession speech was done. As summer wore on, I began to see that she might make a decent running mate for Obama, but still had no forgiveness for her.
When Hillary Clinton stood up and called on her supporters to stand for the principles of the party rather than the person they chose, I wanted to stand and cheer for her. She understood just how important “now” really is.
When President Bill Clinton stood up tonight and compared his candidacy to Obama’s and stated without any equivocation whatsoever that Barack Obama was fit to lead, he ended all hopes that the McCain campaign had of using Hillary Clinton’s words against Barack Obama.
And when John Kerry stood up and railed against the swiftboating and reversals of position between John McCain, the maverick and John McCain the candidate, he sent a clear message – the Democrats were not going to tolerate the politics-as-usual distractions that caused him to lose in 2004.
All of them communicated one single concept: the fierce urgency of NOW.
Even though that phrase may seem to be somewhat trite after all the stump speeches where Obama used it, it’s not.
I expect that Joe Biden understands that it’s not. Just listen to the story of losing his wife and daughter and very nearly losing his sons in a car accident. Urgency. Now.
It’s the center of the core of this country. It’s the same urgency that made our friends’ daughter get up in the morning, train to be a top-level ballet dancer while in high school, spend every minute of every day focused on the goal, and in the end, succeed as much as anyone I’ve known who knows they have just a short time here on this earth.
Everything that is going on at the convention, all the speeches, the balloons, the confetti, the hats — all of it — brings us back to the absolute urgency of now.
To me, “now” means not allowing the Republicans to focus on the wedge issues, to play on subtle racism, and to try to deflect the focus from the issues onto the person in a smarmy Rovian effort intended to tell American voters that Obama’s ideas are too risky, too damaging, too difficult for the average voter to support. Too nuanced.
When you hear people frame Barack Obama as an unpatriotic unAmerican elitist, remember what he wants to accomplish as President. Remember how he has brought each and every supporter into his campaign, been transparent (even when FISA was on the table, by the way), been conversational. Remember what it felt like to have 200,000 people stand in Germany and cheer him in front of the entire world. Remember what it felt like for that one week he was abroad, when we were more respected as a nation and as a people than we have been for the last 8 years.
When thousands of people, young, old and middle-aged alike act on their hopes, when a campaign is funded by millions of small contributions (and yes, I know some are large, too, but many, many people have given to his campaign in addition), they understand what “now” means.
The end goal isn’t to simply elect Obama, though if we don’t we have no chance to meet that end goal. The goal is to understand that it is URGENT, incumbent upon us, right NOW, to turn our derailed country around and put it back on the right track.
In a time where young men and women are dying alongside tens of thousands from the country we occupy without invitation, when everyone is suffering from foreclosures and four-dollar a gallon gas, in a time where our standing in the world is in grave danger and we’ve lost all moral authority to conduct ourselves with diplomacy and dignity, all that is urgent is NOW. And inside now, change.
Just as my friends’ girl did, we too need to stay focused on the goal, to understand the urgency, and to not only support the goal but make it our own.
Not tomorrow. Today. Now.
Our very lives depend upon it.
No distractions. No failures of courage.
I wrote this to a friend today. It applies in all contexts: life, art, leadership…
When we leave this place,
the only thing we have
to hand the next generation
is what we did,
who we were and
what we created.
Now. It means something. Let’s not waste it.