After reading Walt Whitman's "Democratic Vistas"

Whoever you are and wherever you are and whatever you've done with your life, did you ever imagine you'd be here now?

You never did, did you, nor did I. How could we have known we were called upon? And though we never knew we were called upon we have answered the call, we are that kind of people. We did, didn't we, we are the ones doing what's needed of us, either by trusting ourselves or in the mystery that made us ourselves.

We expect the nation to be as healthy as we are, but we are not like others, we are in the minority. We live in the great bewilderment of a still young country in which we've all been given the power to see almost everything as righteous and glorious or as mis-shapened and defiled. We live in a time when democracy is defined as having access to the good life and the good life is defined as having much more than one needs to live in a democracy.

We're right where we are and far from where we hope to be. We're Etruscans.