Bjorno.licio.us

Hope — Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!

I want to tell you today about two persons who have inspired me this past week.

Two very special persons who were not born privileged.

But dared to dream of a life beyond their early disadvantaged social statuses.

Succeeded and are now returning the favor a kind society had bestowed on them.

I am talking about Anousheh Ansari and Barack Obama;

Ansari because she had a dream beyond Earth, a dream I shared since 8, to reach for the skies beyond our planet. A dream she fulfilled this week.

Obama, who symbolises hope for a new generation in our current world that is increasingly polarized by political affiliations, race, religion and color.

From Ansari’s Spaceblog,

“All men have the stars,” he answered, “but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You–you alone–will have the stars as no one else has them–””

From Obama’s 2004 keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention:

That is the true genius of America, a faith — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — at least most of the time.