Oh thank Obama!

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I sat in my classroom today.
No kids. No yelling. No playing.
No sound at all but the streaming audio from one of the happiest days for this country.
It was a 'teacher work day', so there were no kids at school. But there was also no fanfare.
I sat on a desk, next to my co-teacher, PS, and we wiped tears and smiled big.
I cried through a lot of it. Not all of it, but a lot of it.
So thrilled were we!

I searched for a photo, or a quote or something to commemorate this day. And then I watched the very end of the Jim Lehrer NewsHour and heard this essay:
Saying Goodbye
Essayist Richard Rodriguez reflects on how departing presidents leave the nation's most powerful job.

Between that and the benediction, I don't think I'll come down off my idealistic cloud for awhile yet...

With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

So beautiful.