A New Era

44th President of the United States of America Barack Obama began his first day on the job today, 144 years after slavery was abolished, decades after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed and six days after what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 80th birthday.

I am hopeful for President Obama as he leads our country into the future, and I pray that he is guided by God to make faith-filled decisions which will truly benefit the integrity of all people in this great country and beyond.

Below is an excerpt from President Obama’s inaugural speech which marked this historic event.

“…For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny…”