History?

Yesterday we witnessed a very special day. Not just because we elected a Democrat into the Whitehouse, not because we elected the first African American to be our Commander-in-Chief. It was special day because we are one of the few countries who peacefully elect, through a democratic process, someone who will be our President for the next four years. I know there are all the special things about January 20, 2009 and I agree they are historic, but I am still impressed with the process.

However, yesterday I watched a woman in her 90’s sit on a towel in our nations Mall. Tears rolled down this woman’s face. Were they tears of joy for what she had hoped and prayed for? Were they tears of sadness because her loved ones could not be there to see what was happening? As I thought about this woman I thought that there may be some, few if any, who would now be able to say they knew someone who had at one time been a slave and was now watching an African American taking the oath of office. What else had this woman’s eyes seen in her journey on this world?

As I thought about that I begin to wonder what it was that I would someday be able to say I had seen. I am not old enough to have known anyone who was a slave, even someone simply born the day before slavery was abolished. I cannot say I saw the day women received the right to vote, or that African-American joined in that privileged group. I cannot say that I lived through the Great Depression (although I may be close now) nor through “the War”. Nor can. . . well you get the picture.

But as I thought longer I begin to realize that when I have grand-children I will be able to say that I saw some things. Here are just a few things that have happened in my life time not in any particular order:

□ The assassination of a President
□ The assassination of a Presidential candidate
□ The Civil-Rights movement
□ Desegregation
□ Man walking on the moon
□ Man living in space
□ The ability to stand in an open field in Texas and call my sons in California and Virginia
□ The death of two Popes
□ The destruction of the wall of separation between the east and west in Germany
□ The ability to place large amounts of information in very small places
□ The ability to draw information almost instantly from places very far off.
□ Three major wars
□ Now the election of a young African-American to the presidency.

I am sure with some thought there could be many more. It seems that my lifetime has been the witness to more changes, big and small, than any other generation. But which ones will “Define” the years in which I lived. Which one is more important to the history of mankind?

As excited as I am about our future with the happenings of this week I am not sure which will be the most important. Could it be that if looked at in a proper chronological order they are all somewhat dependent on each other?

I don’t have that answer. I am just thinking. What do you think?