THE TIDES OF CHANGE FROM ORDINARY PEOPLE
Today, we witnessed history as Barack Obama became the first African American man elected President of the United States. He represents the faith of millions that change is possible AND necessary. What I find intriguing are the statistics of his election. He won this election on the backs of women voters, young voters and minority voters -ordinary people who have been the subject of marginalization in our society for decades, even centuries.

In his victory speech, Barack told the story of a woman named Anne Nixon-Cooper. She is 106 today and has been alive to overcome two obstacles to voting in her life. Her obstacles included her gender and the colour of her skin. She has been alive to see ordinary people bring about the change necessary to allow women to cast their votes in the United States and then again to witness ordinary people lead the change to bring about full civil and voting rights to the African American population. She herself is an ordinary person. I find this incredibly inspiring.

Barack Obama represents the reality that it is ordinary people who make things better. It is ordinary people that accept responsibility for their actions. It is ordinary people that end wars, fix economies, repair relationships and it is ordinary people that take care of each other, listen to each other and love each other. There is no "other enemy out there" who is responsible for what happens or who decides what will happen. It is ordinary people. I am thankful that those ordinary people showed up, waited in line and cast their vote. I am grateful that there was finally a big enough impetus to motivate ordinary people to dig within themselves and find the courage to finally stand up and say "Yes, we can".