Aroostook Skies:
The incredible shrinking Obama
By Larry Berz
Late in the chill of early November, 2008, I stepped out of Limestone into history. Tottering toward the southwest, beckoned by stars of arguably the brightest and boldest of all configurations, I gazed agape at him. His shoulder burned brightly, orange clad. His footstool burst in scintillating blue blooded-blaze. The tripartite belt of three sapphire-like jewels demarked strength and stability. The surrealism and immediacy of the moment left time suspended, as though he personally awaited me— and my acknowledgement.
Bedecked and bejewelled with stellar recognitions, Obama the President-elect now shined victoriously where once Greek glory had studded the blackness with the more traditional outline of constellation Orion the Mighty Hunter. The political process on Election Night had invaded the cosmos! I paid a uniquely American homage and stole into the brittleness to retrieve our election banner from the unyielding hard pack, once called our “lawn.” And dashing back into the bosom of our heated basement, I hid the signpost as a historical souvenir for later reflection.
Over the course of the next three years, however, I must now confess I never really reflected over that night at all. All of us as voters and Americans now must face ourselves and reflect upon a simple truth: have you and I done anything (let alone our personal best) to provide proof for our earlier confidence and conviction in the vision with which our current President fired the imagination and inspiration of us all? Did the controversy over health care reform and joblessness sap our commitments and courage? Did the atmosphere of partisanship and intransigence amongst the political opposition becloud and weaken the call for a nation known for “our famous individualism” … and the belief that “we are connected as one people.”
As the Big Chill descended upon our County from Presque Isle to Caribou this week, I followed an urge to pop in to the Caribou Public Library in search of a large reference book published by the New York Times titled simply “Obama: The Historic Journey.” Above my head, two great stars shone over our little town. To the southwest, the great evening star, Venus stood poised over the townscape align with the beautiful elderly steeple of the Methodist Church. And to the south, the mightiness of Jupiter aligned within the steeple sights of the lofty Baptist Church. The solar system seemed to configure and conspire into my arrival. The planets follow me along throughout January like silent celestial witnesses to events upon the terrestrial canvas.
I found and checked out the book from the ever-friendly staff with names like Barbara, and Jean, and Mona, and Mary, and Denise. And as I sat down in the chilliness, I started to reread the story of Barack Obama. And the more I read, like an awakening, I came to realize and remember the words of another immortal American voice: “Now is the time.” “We can never be satisfied” with an American saga which compromises the “richness of freedom and the spirit of justice.” We must recognize, accept, and embrace the “fierce urgency of now.” With the “audacity of hope,” I recognized that I must answer the biblical commission spoken to the prophet: “who will go for us?” With “dignity and discipline” we must appropriate a “marvelous new militancy” to once again approach the magnificent heights of social justice. And from that peak, the stars above come within reach of the moral arc of our extended energy.
But how do any of us begin to re-appropriate such a moral, social, and uniquely American quest? First, we must recognize, with the force of moral awakening, that we are, as a people, a union of 21st century Americans, compelled to hold our national truths as self-evident, convinced that we are linked to generations past in perfecting “a more perfect union.” When I read the American promise detailed in the words of President Obama’s 2008 acceptance speech, I am conscious of one of the most intelligent American voices of leadership of our times, who truly recognizes the contending trends and tensions of our day and age. This president perceives the urgency of our times and the unique needs of individual as well as collective America.
Courageously, our president summons us, “America, we cannot turn back.” But hopefully, he enjoins us that “we cannot walk alone.” This nation’s call demands our collective effort and recognition of the realities of the American experience. Certainly, he recognized in electoral victory in 2008, that “the road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America … we as a people will get there.”
My conclusion, therefore, based upon the contention within the first Obama administration, convinces me that we must re-elect him to fulfill the best of the man’s promises to us. If the president essentially inherited the worst of the preceding president’s policies and strategies, surely we owe this current president the opportunity to fulfill a nobler, more heroic course which will engage our personal best. I want, with all my heart, to see what hope can reveal within our nation and myself.
Perhaps that is why those bright stars arrested my moments four years ago. And if you, too, sense the resonance of my message, just step out any clear winter evening, face south and greet the star spangled figure of the night as well. Barack Obama has performed his role already. Magnificently and historically. Now it is up to us. Whether the next 10 months shows Americans content to shrink and diminish the unique hope of Obama’s vision in exchange for a future four years of business as usual or worse remains within our hands and our hopes and our voice. As the President declared, however, “America, we cannot turn back.”
Larry Berz is director of Easton’s Francis Malcolm Planetarium and astronomy instructor at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics.
