Friday, November 7, 2008

Our Moment of Zen

How would you have answered the final question at the Nashville Presidential Debate? Do you remember the question? "What don't you know and how will you learn it?"

Senator Obama seized upon it as a moment to praise his wife. Then, he skillfully weaved around the question. I don't remember how Senator McCain dealt with the question.

That question reminded me of an Ashleigh Brilliant cartoon, which read, "If you wait until you are completely, absolutely, totally ready, you never will be." Though I am certain that Senator Obama could plumb the depths of that question, he chose not to provide the McCain campaign with grist for the mill. It was politically imperative for Senator Obama to parry all vollies casting doubt on his experience.

Yet, it would have been instructive to be reminded of the day William Tecumseh Sherman met President Lincoln shortly after the inauguration in March 1861. Senator John Sherman, of Ohio, introduced his brother by telling the President about William's trip from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Upon secession, Colonel (later, General) Sherman had resigned his position as Commandant of the Louisiana Military Academy and traveled by rail across the South. He had witnessed feverish preparations for war. Sherman tried hard to convey his alarm. Lincoln shrugged it off, remarking, "Well, I reckon we'll find a way to keep house." Sherman left that meeting thoroughly disgusted with the ignorant huckster in the White House.

Yet, we all know that President Lincoln rose to the challenge. The President, himself, could not foresee the immensity of the burden he was doomed to carry. He may not have known his shoulders could bear it. Only by bearing it did he learn he could bear it.

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