January 30th, 2005

Sunrise

This morning, the sun shined upon Iraq from a clear, crisp, blue sky. After the rains of last week, its job of drying the soil is nearly complete, and now it serves to nourish the brave, bright green sprouts peeking here and there from that soil into the early, early spring desert air. This year, almost as if on cue, a new species of plant sprouted, essentially heretofore unknown to this part of the world, though it was once the home of great Hanging Gardens and the birthplace of the rule of law.

Those small leaflets poking from the soil have been identified as of the genus democratus, though the species is difficult to pin down, as each new sprouting is almost always a brand new species. As with all newly-sprouted plants, this one continues to require careful nourishment and care, though it may very well prove hardier than we think.

As is often the case with a new birth, let us stand in humility that such a thing exists at all, let alone what a gift it is that we are able to witness it. For today, I am truly humbled.

It is interesting to note that for many, this Sunday's Christian church services featured a series of readings from the Bible consisting of and relating to the Beatitudes. It was probably not intended by man, but it is fitting nonetheless. For over the past months, and over recent weeks in particular, the prideful and violent have bullied the meek. They repeatedly threatened to boycott this birth (as though not looking at a plant somehow proves its lack of existence), and, worse, to kill any who may have been associated with aiding it. But today, the meek were willing to suffer in righteousness, if the need arose. And today, even those more closely aligned with the murderous few have had to admit that this was a day that the silent majority of the meek stood and inherited the earth.

A long season remains before the harvest can be gathered, but gathered it will be. For today, when the danger was greatest, millions upon millions of men and women stood together with purple, rather than green, fingers and thumbs, and said together "We will be stewards of this democracy. We will stand for ourselves."