Good Advice

While the euphoria and jubilance that soared onto the world’s stage the evening of November 4th is still in the air, I would urge everyone to go to this site: http//www.theroot.com/id/48726

There you will read a moving letter to Barack Obama from Alice B. Walker, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of “The Color Purple.” Ms. Walker also coined the word "womanist" for African American feminism: “‘Womanist’ is to ‘Feminist’ as purple is to lavender.” Here’s a wonderful line from The Color Purple: “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it”..

While Ms. Walker’s letter to the President Elect gets right to the heart of the profundity of this historical moment in time when a black person has been elected to the highest office in the land, it also contains good counsel for us all, and that is to cultivate happiness in our own lives. She reminds him to please remember to relax happily in his new role, so that we can relax too. She tells him that success is really an inside job that is within the reach of us all and it isn’t achieved in the acquisition of objects and fame. It is being at home and comfortable in one’s own skin. She tells him that he did not create the mess the world is in, and that in this most difficult role that fate has delegated to him, to please seek balance and take time to enjoy his family. The whole world is watching, and if he can stay centered and at peace he will serve as a role model for us all, and that in itself is a great service to humanity.

Her reminder is a cue to us all that preservation of the soul is our salvation and our sanity, and that our smiles are a reflection of our souls’ condition.

She closes her letter with a phrase that just lingers with me,
“We are the ones we have been waiting for.”