“We have it in our power to begin the world over again. …how ridiculous, how trifling, do the little paltry civilings of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of the world. ” – Thomas Paine, 1776

Hillary Clinton failed in her lifelong dream to shatter the glass ceiling, and the singer and writer Leonard Cohen, who always touched my heart, died soon after. On Saturday Night Live last night, Kate McKinnon fused these two different kinds of deaths  in a beautiful, simple and achingly poignant performance of Hallelujah, Cohen’s best known song.

The song was about Hillary Clinton in some ways, it was also about me, and maybe, you.

McKinnon grasped that it was not the right time to laugh, not the right time to jeer or hate or despair.

She  struck just the right note for me, it brought some tears, it went beyond the anger and hatred and arguments and went straight to the soul. Loss is an integral part of life, and so many are feeling the deepest kind of loss this week, the loss of an idea, an identity, a shared sense of purpose and values.

At the end of her performance, McKinnon turned to the camera, and said “I won’t give up. And don’t you give up either.” So much said and unsaid in that line, but of course, but I knew just what she meant, and I imagine many of you reading this do also.

I will not give up. I can’t tell other people what to do, but I hope they don’t give up either.

I will not give up on the coming work to take my country back.

I will not give up on a compassionate world.

I will not give up on our sacred obligation to offer hope to the poor.

I will not give up on the idea of equal justice and opportunity for all.

I will not give up on the freedom of every human being to live, love and die as they wish.

I will not give up on the belief that we all should be free to die as we wish to die and live as we wish to die and live.

I will not give up on my love for a country that opens its arms to the weary and the oppressed.

I will not give up on listening or compromise or empathy.

I will not give up on the simplest of ideas:  that children must live and learn in safety.

 

Something died last week, but something also was born. A time to look ahead, not back.

A great awakening, a new shared experience, a powerful sense of community and common purpose, the thrill of a moral calling. Life is never static, it never sits still and waits for us. We are called to make the lives we believe, as our fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers did. No one will give it to us, no one gave it them.

The pendulum never stops swinging one way, then the other. We can wait for our time, or we can make our time.

I will not waste my remaining years on hatred and argument, I know there is a better way, I know there is goodness in people. I am filled with hope for the future, that flame has been lit and is burning brightly now. Hundreds of years ago, the great pamphleteer Thomas Paine wrote that it was time to begin the world anew, and he meant it was time for people to live freely and equally, under the law and in their own daily lives.

Listening to Hallelujah, I thought of that idea, and I heard the bells ring and the angels clap their hands, as if to say,  you got it, boy, wake up to this new music.

The revolution is over, the revolution has just begun.

Thomas Paine, from his essay “birthday of a new world?:

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand and a race of men [and women] are to receive their portion of freedom from the events of a few months. The reflection is awful, and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavilings of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of the world.”