On the Eve of the Inauguration

I scrapped my first editorial. It just didn’t seem right on the eve of this historical event in our nations history. You see, as I wrap up this issue and send it off to press, I am re-writing my editorial at 9:30 p.m. on January 19, 2009. For the Rotary historians who might be reading this in some sixty years, this is the night before Barack Obama is to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.

I can’t tell you how history will look back on this event. But I can tell you how I hope that this amazing sense of optimism we as a country feel on this date will continue well beyond the pomp and circumstance of the Inaugural. I could write how President Obama should look at the Rotary Four Way to help guide him over the next four or eight years, but I think he already has a pretty good grasp on what it means to put service above self.

No, what I have to say is that I believe we as a nation are going to be stronger tomorrow and that what President Obama is going to bring is a sense that we are ALL responsible for making our world better each and every day.

I am proud to be a Rotarian and proud of those things we are doing throughout the world. I sense that in a way, we are all being called to service and to act in unison, bound together by promise and hope of a better world around us. We are called to use our resources and our own unique abilities for the betterment of the community in which we live and to help our fellow human beings in their time of need.

Each of us as Rotarians must do something more than come to a meeting once a week. We must utilize our talents and our unique skills to harness the power of our millions of members. Acting together, we can continue to change the world.