A new world

The complexities of time zones meant that when I went to bed last night it was still too early to have any sense of what today might bring, so for once I was grateful for the dawn call of the puppy which brought me down to the computer while it was still dark.
BBC newsonline and YES
The dream is coming true
I am old enough to remember the tears my mother shed when Martin Luther King was assassinated...Today I found myself crying too, in pure joy that the dream has so nearly come true.
(A friend commented elsewhere today that it won't have fully come true until a black American can be elected to the White House without any comments on their colour at all...but wow,this is a quantum leap forward)

It was my day to lead an assembly at the primary school. The theme for the week is "Remembrance" so I took in the Peace prayer, and some cards printed with the key words
War/Peace
Love/Hate
Hope/Despair
Life/Death
We talked about what those opposites might mean in terms of remembering our war dead...we talked about what they might mean in the light of this very special dawn...we talked about why this election matters so much to the world beyond America....we even talked about colour and to my delight the children proved again the opinion that the young are truly colour-blind.
Then, without prompting, one little girl said to me
"Kathryn, does the new President in America mean that we are moving from despair to hope?"
In a remarkable day, that was one of the most remarkable moments...though it was lovely, too, that the Wednesday Eucharist congregation were united in joy and in the urge to pray for the man from whom impossible things are expected the man who has become the vehicle for so very many dreams.

Lead me from death to life,
from falsehood to truth,
Lead me from despair to hope,
from fear to trust.
Lead me from hate to love,
from war to peace,
Let peace fill our beings,
our world and our universe. Amen.