Who Is The One That Counts?

I was just walking on the grounds and beach of Teddy Roosevelt’s Long Island Country home and the woods down to the beach are lovely. I was trying to imagine the family enjoying the orchard, trails and views across the Long Island Sound and the marshes and birds. I picked up a few crystal tumble stones that glistened in the sun, edged with snow. I was ruminating about how presidents in the past were proud to represent their promising young country. They acted with integrity and exemplified leadership with morals and generosity, strength and conviction, that there was a just and noble way to build a country that felt like freedom from oppression and fascism. I was pondering what he would think of the USA today. I’m Canadian, visiting friends whose son just passed suddenly of a virus. I wondered what Teddy (his nickname and where we started calling plush toys Teddy Bears) would have thought of the pandemic also, or what the administration might have done afterwards to commemorate those who died from it and how we might do better next time? And then I can home to read this quote! I feel called to muster up more strength, more leadership in me to dare to do MORE for the good of my country, or at least for more of the good people who are suffering from climate anxiety, cultural anxiety (partly due to our neighbours in the US who vote according to delusional greatness or freedom of an ungenerous sort, mixed with fear and intolerance, disguised as religion.) I have US friends obviously, but they are embarrassed by what is going on and having trouble figuring a way out of the mess their country is in. May it swing back to the moral values it once held dear, and even help progressively save the human race from mass extinction rather than perpetuate it. Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt would have done a better job of it!