BY MARK LEMMONS
Dear Mr. President,
I wanted to send this note to thank you, because not a day goes by that your leadership and presence in my life isn’t having an impact. I don’t think I’m alone in this. You inspire me, perhaps not in the way you intended, but this, of course, was your goal. To dominate not just the headlines, but our attention. You have thus conquered us. Your inspiration has yielded not just this note, but the pledges herein.
Thank you, Mr. President, for the wake-up call, and my deepening appreciation for things like unalienable rights and truths that are self-evident. Thank you for reminding me that the true greatness of America is her deep goodness. I won’t ever take that for granted again.
Thank you for showing me, through your relentless scowl, that I have no right to such an attitude. That entitlement is the path to anger. That bitterness dries the bones. I will strive to set down any similar urge or display in my own life, and with equal effort to your own I will seek a different path.
Thank you for your constant illustration on the toxic nature of passive aggressive behavior. A master class in how not to lead. I pledge to do my best to set aside this tactic, whether caused by habit, inclination or choice. To my family, friends, co-workers, and fellow human beings, I am sorry if I have used any similar approach in our interactions. Please forgive me.
Thank you, Mr. President, for illuminating the importance of truth, and highlighting that so many things today are fake. Among them small dishonesties, large omissions, reckless and endangering falsehoods. Not only yours, Mr. President, but ours. As a culture and nation. And mine, as a father, husband, leader and man. I shall go forward in my life striving to a new level of transparency, honesty, and pragmatic adherence to what is real and to what matters.
Thank you, Mr. President, for highlighting our apathy. Towards children, immigrants, and the least of these. Towards the poor and the homeless. Towards the other. Towards each other. Towards the debtor, the student, the teacher. My own apathy, now apparent, disgusts me. I pledge to replace it with a vigorous and open embrace of my fellow human beings. With my time, focus, effort, energy and money I will not stay silent or still but act. I pledge to continuously work to exchange my apathy for action thanks to you.
I must also thank you for a deep change of heart. It’s complicated, but you are just the exclamation point at the end of a very long sentence that we wrote together as a nation. Now that I can see the whole sentence more clearly, thanks in no small part to your emphasis, I must reconsider, well, everything. Nearly every single view that I hold, I now hold up to the cold light of this reflection. I’m reminded so often of Cormac McCarthy’s writing now, as with this quote in No Country for Old Men. “If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” Yes, exactly. The dishonest separation of word from deed, this deep national hypocrisy, is manifest in me. If by valuing life I endorsed slavery, if through moralizing I dehumanized, if by fear of others I advocated violence, and if through my own entitlements and disappointments I gave only lip service to freedom’s voice in the throat of a migrant, a slave, a minority, a woman, a child, a mother, a brother or sister, then enough. If I failed to recognize my own humanity, and thus my responsibilities, independent of judgment, well then thank you for pointing this out so clearly, so frequently, and so harshly. Now apparent, the inglorious truth of it scalds me. With this pledge to change now, I am moving on.
Most of all, thank you for the disillusionment. I usually think of that word with a negative connotation, but after steeping in it for the last two years I can appreciate the subtle notes of this bitter draught. I am without so many illusions that once held tight. In their place, I now hold an open hand and an open mind. A willing heart. A simple hope. Yes, hope instead of illusion. I’m reminded of the ancient wisdom that faith is the very substance of this hope, the evidence of what I don’t yet see.
So thank you for the mirror Mr. President. Apparently, I have work to do. We have work we must now actually do, and together. I see that now, so off to work I go, with a song of purpose on my lips and a chorus of fellow citizens alongside me. I hadn’t noticed them before, but thanks to you, I see them now. Thank God, I’m not alone. The journey looks long, but promising.
Sincerely,
A fellow American.