Audacious

I just trashed 500 or so words worth of a rambling, verbose exploration of the redemptive power of change. It wasn't that good, so let's talk about books.

Do you remember East of Eden? In it, the character Lee is tripped up by a section of the book of Genesis (chapter 4, verses 6 and 7, to be precise). You see, in one translation, God tells Cain "thou shalt rule over" sin; in another, God says "Do thou rule over" sin. Lee, a thinker, was understandably perturbed by the difference. When it comes to conquering sin, getting a promise from God and getting an order from God are drastically different things.

So of course, to get to the heart of the matter, Lee learns Hebrew, to better understand the original text. And what does he discover?

"The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’"

Not to spoil things, but this whole timshel idea is the crux of the story.

I was reminded of Steinbeck's story the other day when President-elect Barack Obama gave his victory speech from Grant Park in Chicago. The long presidential campaign, during which our identity as Americans was used as a political cudgel, was over, and something needed to be said about what America really is. The president-elect might not have used the term "thou mayest," but he came pretty close:

"This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. . . . And to all those who have wondered if Americas beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope. For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow."

A lot is said about American exceptionalism. From the days of the first colonists, when John Winthrop said of his Massachusetts Bay colony "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us," America has seen itself as a uniquely great nation. The mistakes that we have made have happened when we act to exert America's greatness, instead of working to make it great. When we fall back on America's might, instead of its ideals. When we treat our greatness as a birthright, instead of a goal to be strived for. The president-elect understands this. His election was historic—really, significant beyond my ability to put it into words. But the real work is yet to be done. His election is a symbol of a concrete change that we have to take up ourselves. It's a chance. We may take it. Or we may not.

President-elect Obama gets it, drawing from the preamble of our founding document: our union can be perfected. The diction in the Constitution is no accident. It wasn't written to form a perfect union, but rather a more perfect one. The implication couldn't be more clear: perfection isn't on the horizon. It's just beyond it.

That's what makes America great, that quest for perfection. Our history as a nation is pocked by almost unforgivable sins: genocide, slavery, war. I say almost unforgivable, because I believe that the American story is a story of redemption. (I guess we're back to the redemptive power of change.) And whether the redemption is of the ancient crimes of European tyranny, or our own more recent ones, America is a place where that cleansing can happen, where things can be made right. Because even though their application hasn't always been consistent, the words that actually are our birthright have never changed: that all men are created equal; that our union can be more perfect; that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish. The American story is a long slog; too long, in fact. But the slog inevitably leads to the same place. That's the genius of America.

I have a favorite quote, which I think is appropriate here, and crazy enough, it's from Captain Jame Kirk, of the starship Enterprise. He said "We’re human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands. But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers, but we won’t kill today." Yes. We can.