Women's March Speech

My speech from today’s Woman’s March.

I want to thank each of you for coming out tonight. It's been a long hard row. We've gone through a brutal campaign filled with vitriol, misogyny and racism. And for many of us the election of our newest president has only underscored those things.

But regardless of who won we've all been witness to a degree of brutality that had never been a part of a presidential race before this time.

We can't unsee the mocking gestures made. We can't unhear the ugly comments made about people of color, the LGBTQ community, Muslims, immigrants and others.

We can't unhear those things but we can choose to not let those words and actions cloud our vision of America. How we create the United States of America in our own families, in our own communities. We get to choose how we live out the noble ideals of our nation.

No president makes a nation. We do.

And we are choosing healing tonight. We are choosing to rise above the rhetoric of hate. We are choosing to speak the language of love.

We are here because we believe that when we gather in community, that's where healing happens. Not in isolation, not hiding behind labels of who's in or out. But in community.

A new era begins tonight. A new testing of our nation and what makes us strong. These are uncertain times but let us remember in the words of Gunilla Norris:

Each of us can make a difference.

Politicians and visionaries will not return us

to the sacredness of life.

That will be done by ordinary men and women

who together or alone can say,

Remember to breathe, remember to feel,

remember to care,

let us do this for our children and ourselves

and our children's children.

Let us practice for life's sake.

So let us go forth now. Practicing , for life's sake the art of being kind, of reaching across borders, of building bridges of hope not walls of divisiveness.

Let the healing begin now. let us remember that

"We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope." --Martin Luther

Parker Palmer states

“I continue to harbor the hope

that this political season of our discontent

will help us think more clearly and deeply

about who we are as a people.”

And I would add to then do the work to heal our nation

This is not about who won or lost

This is about who we will choose to be

As a nation going forward.

In the words of poet, David Whyte:

“This is not

the age of information.

This is not

the age of information.

Forget the news,

and the radio,

and the blurred screen.

This is the time of loaves

and fishes.

People are hungry,

and one good word is bread

for a thousand.”

I hope you will join me in sharing the loaves and fishes of hope and peace and justice and love.

And that way, no matter which candidate has won, we all win. May it be so.