Post-Inauguration: Will You Walk Toward the Light?

Following Wednesday’s inauguration, some are saying President Biden’s vision for the country is naive and others believe unity is not possible. So what does this mean for us and how we move forward together?

Rich Harwood tackles the question: Will you walk toward the light? Watch or listen below as he unpacks this question and what it means for you and your work.

Hi, I'm Rich Harwood. Welcome to a special edition of Harwood half hour, the day after the inauguration of our new President Joe Biden. Yesterday in his inaugural remarks, he called for national unity. And I wonder, is that doable? Is it even possible? What does it mean for us? What does it mean for how we move forward? And so today I want to explore with you the question, will you walk toward the light? Will you walk toward the light? It's great to have you with me today. Again, my name is Rich Harwood. This is a special edition of Harwood half hour. The topic today - post inauguration, will you walk toward the light?

You know, yesterday we saw an historic transition in our country. It was coming off of the recent interaction just two weeks ago, at the Capitol where what I think of as thugs stormed the Capitol, broke into the Capitol and damage the Capitol, the citadel of our democracy. And yesterday was also historic because for the first time in 150 years, a sitting president chose not to attend the inauguration of his successor and to demonstrate a peaceful transfer of power in our democracy and yet, and yet as a nation, and as a people, we persevere, didn't we? We persevered.

And so amid this newfound joy among some folks in our country, and amid the continued anger of others, we all woke up today with the question, what's next? What's coming? What's next? I had planned today this morning, when I woke up and knew that we'd be joining each other this afternoon, I woke up with the notion that I would come forward with four choices that you face, I thought about it overnight, kind of how to how can we move forward. And I promise I will give you those four choices, the kind of how-to in the coming weeks. But today, I want to do something different today, two weeks after the interaction today, just days after my recent Sunday letter where I said, Don't give up, don't walk away. I want to offer a sense of grounding, a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose, about how we can approach moving forward. In the dark times in which we live. I want to offer a sense of grounding, meaning and purpose, about how we can approach moving forward in these dark times in which we live and to ask this fundamental question of each of us, of all of us. In particular, have you will you walk toward the light? You know, yesterday, Amanda Gorman, the 22 year old poet, amazing, amazing, incredible young woman who stood up and read her poetry started. In this way. She said, "when the day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light? In this never ending shade. The last we carry a sea we must wait. We've raised the belly of the beast, we've learned that quiet isn't always peace. And the norms and notions of what is isn't always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours."

You know in Stepping Forward, my most recent book, I began the book by writing about my childhood illness. I was diagnosed initially as a young child with cystic fibrosis. I remember night after night, what trying to last through the night with a fever of 106 105 of hallucinating hours on end of having the dry heaves hours on end. And what I didn't write in that book was that outside my bedroom window was a street light just right outside my window. And each night I would find that light, I would search for it. And I would hope that it would guide me to another dawn to another day that I would find the light not only at night but in the dawn where I could believe that I could start my life again over, anew, a fresh start. You know in the darkness, and the doubt that it sows, come the seeds of faith and hope as we search for the light. And so now, today, in the darkness that we face, how do we walk toward the light?

For me, the first thing I think of when I think of that question is that in the light, we remember, in the light, we must remember, we remember in our current days, the 400,000 people who have lost their lives, to COVID-19. And the families and loved ones and neighbors and friends that they've left behind who are grieving. And our fellow Americans who in the future weeks in the coming weeks, will also lose their lives. And so in the light, we see these 400,000 people, we don't forget them, we remember them. In the light, we see the economic upheaval around us. The people who have lost their businesses, the people who have lost their jobs, the people who fear that they are next in losing their jobs. In the light, we see the reckoning that we face the reckoning around systemic racism and social injustice, a reckoning that has been coming for 400 years that we can no longer turn away from and turn our backs on in the light. In the light, we see the reckoning before us, and we want to engage with it. In the light, we see that our climate is in peril. And in the light, we see the aftermath of the political insurrection that we weathered just two weeks ago. And in the light, we see the political leaders who brazenly pursue their own blind ambition, their own personal ambition, at the cost of the public good in the light, we remember these things we do not forget.

And so will this light will the light that we walk towards, show us the way to unity. Well, here's what I know. In the light, we will at least get a better understanding of reality, of the reality of what is and for what it is. We will know in this light that we will never all agree. And I happen to believe that in a pluralistic society, we don't need everyone to agree. And in fact, we don't want everyone to agree, we want a competition of ideas. We want the tension that that competition brings. We want even the conflict that emerges so that we can figure out the best way forward. It is a strength, not a weakness, it is part of democracy. It is democracy, that we don't all agree in the light. We also know that there's no such thing as Kumbaya moments. Where as we are remembering the reality that we face, we know that we simply cannot just hold hands and sing Kumbaya, and hope that the world would get better. Because wishing for things to get better is not enough. We must work to make them better. And in the light, we know that it is not time just to sweep away the idea of unity as something that is naive. Because we assume as I heard repeatedly last night from some political commentators that all 74 million people who voted for President Trump are akin to the insurrectionists that thugs who stormed our Capitol.

We must know in the light, that the 74 million people or 72 million people, the 70 plus million people who voted for the former president is not a monolithic group. And they are not all thugs or waiting to storm the Capitol. Much like we must all know that all the people who voted for President Biden are surely not a monolithic group. And surely as we know that there is no group in our society that is monolithic, no group by race, ethnicity, heritage, creed religion, where they live the zip code, that there are no such things as monolithic groups in our society. And so are we are you are you willing to see the light peeking through the darkness today? Are you willing to take that chance? Are you willing to step forward and take that chance? Because in the light, we move forward as best we can. You know, we don't need everyone to come with us. We just need enough of us to come with us. Those who are willing to step forward, those who are willing to join us to reimagine and recreate our lives, our communities and this nation itself. Why? Because we need just enough of us. Because we face so many challenges ahead of us. And because we know that there is no going back in life. And we know because certainly there is no going back to normal. Because for so many of us, normal wasn't all that good.

So are you ready to use the light to build again? Because in the light, when we come into the light, when we're willing to see the light, we commit ourselves to who we are, and what we stand for. We illuminate in the light, we illuminate our pain and our sorrow, we illuminate our anger and our rage. We illuminate the sense of loss that so many people feel. In the light, we don't sweep these things away, we don't try to hide them in the dark, we bring them out into the light, so that we can deal with them, so that we can know them so that we can embrace them. In the light. As we build again, we can ensure as I've said many times over and over again, that each and every individual is afforded dignity, as a god given right, as a non negotiable as a birthright. That in the light, we can finally see each other again, see our common humanity again, it's only in the light not in the darkness, that we can afford each other this dignity, and see our shared humanity. It is in the light that we make community a common enterprise, where we believe that we sink or swim together, where we believe that community is not just for some of us, but for all of us. That community is not just for those who look like us or sound like us or have the same color of skin as us. That community is not simply just for those who pray to the same God as us if they pray to any God at all. That community is not just for those who live in the same zip code is us or drive the same kind of car as us or have the same economic station as us. That when we say community, we mean all of us. And we mean all of us. We have to make community a common enterprise where we work with common cause and a common direction, marshaling our common resources to create a shared future together. In the light, where we build together, we see ourselves as doers. Because while talk is important, while coming together to talk is important. Talk alone will never be enough.

Because so many of us are so tired of the same old conversations that we've had time and time again, that we want to see action, we want to see something happening. And so if we see ourselves as doers, it allows us to discover what is possible. It allows us to discover our innate capabilities to take action. It allows us to rediscover that we can believe in one another that we can come together and get things done again. When we see each other as doers, it allows us to discover that we can do things we never could have imagined before. And so when the light shines on us, we need to see ourselves as doers again, in the light, we need to figure out who we can run with to get started and not wait for everyone. But to join hands and lock arms with those who are ready to go, those who are ready to roll and to begin to find a new direction together.

And in the light we must make visible for all to see the actions that we are taking. Not because they are the answer to the challenges that we face. But because they are the seeds of our individual and shared faith and hope in ourselves and in one another. That we actually can, as I said before, come together and get things done. Amid our differences, despite our differences, we can still do it. And in the light, where we recommit ourselves to who we are and what we stand for, we never walk away. We never give up. We never give in.

You know, Dorothy Day, the great Catholic social activist, one of my personal heroes, once wrote, she wrote, "People say, what is the sense of our small effort, they cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time. Take one step at a time. a pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions." Each one of our thoughts, each one of our words, each one of our deeds is like that. No one has the right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do. There's too much work to do.

You know, each night, when I laid in my bed, when I was a kid, I would keep my eye on that light out in the street, that streetlight and I would vow each and every night that with the help of God, I would make it to a new dawn to a new morning. So I could start again. So I could start anew that there would be a possibility of yet another day. Here's how Amanda Gorman put it in her poem at President Biden's inauguration, "When the day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it for there is always light. If only we are brave enough to see it. If only we are brave enough to do it."

My message to you today is let us walk toward the light. To walk toward the light is to see that you and I and others have the ability to lay one brick at a time to take one step at a time. To walk toward the light is to see that we can begin again to root our efforts in a faith and a hope that comes from the seeds of our doubt in the dark. To walk toward the light is to know that we cannot create absolute unity. But what we can do is that we can get up each morning. And we can help create a new path forward. My hope for you today is that you are willing to see the light and to walk walk toward it. To come together with others to build a more just fair, equitable, inclusive and hopeful society.

For all in America, we need you, we need you now more than ever. Don't give up. Never give in. Don't walk away now. Let us find the light and walk toward it together. So today, I just wanted to provide some words that hopefully offered some grounding, a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose of where we are not a four point plan. But something deeper, something maybe more meaningful. And I hope if you found this message meaningful today that you share it with others, that you find others and help them find the light and help them use this message to do that. If you want more information about the Harwood Institute, go to the Harwoodinstitute.org. If you haven't had a chance to read my latest book, Stepping Forward, go to our website or amazon.com. Until next time, I hope that you stay in good health and in good spirits. Be well, walk toward the light. Thanks.