Go Forth

I spent yesterday glued to the television, even though I SWORE to myself that I'd stop after Aretha Franklin sang (because I know myself well enough to know I couldn't NOT watch Aretha.)

Apparently I wasn't alone; the inauguration is all my friends and neighbors have been able to talk about for the last 24 hours. No matter what our political persuasion, Obama's call to volunteerism resonated with each of us, particularly this line:

"The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good."

If every person in this crowd, and every person who watched the inauguration on television, did even one small thing to help a friend or neighbor, to improve their local schools, or to raise the standard of living in a poor community (perhaps through an organization such as Heifer International) what kind of world would we have?