By Stephen C. Rose
I doubt anyone remembers a Presidential candidate saying we have a righteous wind at our back, but these remarkable words are now part of Barack's closing stump speeches.
The phrase makes sense, given the Faustian drama we're in.
The McCain forces, believing wealth and success are divinely ordained to a small elect, circle their wagons as their one-time allies, anticipating the righteous wind, make little secret of retreat.
And we -- tired and believing -- listen for the tell-tale rumble. We are ready to resonate to it.
It is justice. And change. A dream long deferred. Utterly natural. Yes. And deserved.
We wish to forge a politics that reasons together and rights wrongs and achieves fairness for all.
A McCain campaign, mired in arm-waving, Wars-R-Us thinking, falls before this wind.
We have no right to universal rule. To permanent indebtedness. To endless inequity. To sanctioned abuse.
The righteous wind, when we can sense it, is renewable each day.
The Bible reminds us that it comforts. It is Beatitudinal. It can soothe grinding anxiety. It can clear debris. It makes the liberating exercise of responsibility and choice come alive.
Comfort is achieved by toppling the unjust and righting the wrong, from Guantanamo to the very bowels of our shattered justice system and our desecrated environment.
And, yes, the righteous wind unmuddies thought.
Good governance breaks tasks into doable acts. That is how Barack's mind works. How Colin Powell created loyalty at State.
Doable actions in a field cleared by a righteous wind.
Listen.
It is coming from the East. A West Wind. Yes. Heading toward you.
On Tuesday at dawn, a low rumble will waken Newfoundland.
Soon it will be be heard in the Keys. In Philadelphia. In the Virginias. Then over Asheville, Chattanooga, Birmingham. Past Selma and Meridian. Through Cincinnati and Toledo. Up past Wisconsin's lakes and down past Little Rock.
The righteous wind takes on musical cadences crossing the great river and coursing over plains toward Colorado, a jeweled barrier. Arriving there, it swirls through passes and dips down to the Four Corners, and up past Caspar, then Montana, all the way to Mount St. Helen's shadowed northern side.
Where suddenly it calms.
It wafts a kiss to California, to Alaska, to Hawaii, And says, Aloha.
Then the day is done.
But the righteous wind will resume tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
For as long as we can hear it, feel it, go with it.
It has been a long time for the times to be a'changin'.