Fence-Sitting

Sitting on the fence can hurt your backside and make you feel like you're going to topple either to the left or to the right at any moment. Like, if you make a decision, the end result is going to be painful; the thud will reverberate throughout your body and consciousness. Still, while you're standing up there, wavering on the fence rail, go ahead look in the eyes of the people watching you on either side.These poeple behind, around, underneath, to the side of things that have scared them over the years, things that might mean that we're all human at the core. Then they took their stands on ideas important in their worlds.

I've been such fence-sitter on a number of occasions. I like to hang around up top as much as I can before I try to be like these and land on a decision. I've done the same through most of the recent election. However, I ended up being one that made a decision based on one idea, one idea that affected life or death. That made my decision easy when I voted. I didn't have to do much research on issues or think too hard. I don't regret it though, not in this case. It was the right choice.

I watched the inaugural speech a while back, and I feel like the rest of the country does: change is in the air. Maybe I feel that way because I've heard it said over and over again. If something is said loud enough and long enough, you start to believe it.

I can't put my finger on much of anything at the moment, but things will not continue as they have been. It's been building for some time now, certainly not just during the last eight years.

It's quite unsettling having your world jostled in a way that turns it to face a new, though not always better, direction. Then again, it could be the best unsettled moment you may ever have. Embracing the changes as they come if they are good, standing firm against them if they are not. These things we have always done, and will continue to do, Lord willing.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land -- a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

During his inaugural speech, Obama stated, "Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met."

These are exactly the fears that are keeping us firmly on the ground after we've made a decision to not accept what is already happening in our country and in the rest of the world. They keep us entrenched in mud that has bogged many of us down for so long. This mud sneers in the face of hope.

I'd like a little of this mud on me, though. It can only bog me down if I let it. Maybe someone from one side of the fence will throw some up at me while I walk the fence some more. That way, I can try to face things as they really are, and not get caught up or kept down by one way of thinking or another. The fence has no end in sight. I think I'll keep on walking.