This is a victorious shout into the wind.
A long overdue megaphone blast of joyful defiance.
It is a clarion call to those whose hearts can take no further breaking.
This is an awakening; the end of a long, brutal, losing war with the night.
It is the dawn announcing itself in radiant, unapologetic fire.
We are once again a people alive.
For a while we may have forgotten what it feels like, to be so hopefully ablaze in this way.
The fight will do that to you.
It will wear you out.
It will drain you.
It will suffocate and extinguish all that is light within you.
We’d grown so weary and bitter and tired from all of it, that we’d almost forfeited the very best of us.
We almost conceded defeat and willingly surrendered to the rage.
We almost consented to the violence within us.
We almost relinquished our dreams.
We almost abandoned hope.
Almost.
But morning is here.
We are being made new again.
We are a people turning and returning—a revolution in real-time.
We are boldly declaring our independence from the darkness.
This is a treason of sorts, a daring defection from the homeland of our youth.
It is a place that no longer merits our allegiance, and so we run from it joyfully.
We are running toward somewhere better, building something greater.
We’ve seen too much suffering, bound-up too many wounds, buried too many before their time.
We’ve grown exhausted by the violence of venomous words and the destruction it so easily speaks into being. We are seeking the words that give life.
Today is rebirth and renewal and resurrection, exploding all around like a Spring of every living thing.
In this blinding and beautiful daylight, we are moving now to rescue something precious that we’d lost.
We’ve seen our nation hijacked by hatred—and we are resisting.
We are gently but surely reclaiming them from the hands of the hurtful and restoring to them the brilliant luster that comes only when love is their truest agenda.
We are a people waking-up to who we are; family formed not by homeland border or religious affiliation or political lines or any other distinction or demarkation, but by the sacred kinship of our shared humanity.
Our very blood testifies to the one life that all we walk together in.
This is the DNA of our joy today.
This is the reason for our expectant hearts, so fully affixed to our sleeves.
This is the reason we will strain to never go back to the dark places and to the hateful words and to the dead-end tombs of the past.
We are after all, a people of life—of all life.
The morning once again reminds us.
This is the truth that overcomes death.
This is why we once again find strength and passion and resolve.
This is our manifesto of Hope.
Hope is indeed alive.
It resides within us.
We are that hope, together.
Come alive.
Rise.
Shine.
