A Sense of Responsbility

Alex Martin
Publications Manager, FCNL
Guest Blogger

Throughout Washington, DC on the day after the election, horns were honking and people were running down the street with banners, exchanging cheers and smiles with everyone they passed. Young people and African Americans make up the majority of the population in this city, which voted 93 percent for our new president-elect. For whichever candidate one voted, however, the new blood rushing into our democratic process is undeniable.

This morning I come to work at FCNL with a great sense of responsibility. Everywhere, and from many new quarters, the energy and desire to rebuild this country and reconnect it to the rest of the world is palpable. Millions of people who felt alienated by or just indifferent to politics, in the sense of our common civic project, have been connected to it by the two-year drama that has just concluded. Suddenly, they feel they have a stake. For a time, anyway, we feel like a people. How will we harness this energy? How will we keep people engaged in solving the tremendous problems we confront?

I also feel great privilege, because I work for an organization dedicated to precisely this purpose. FCNL has never been more relevant. Never has there been greater need for our work: to show people ways to remain involved with their government, and to continually remind our new leaders of the causes of peace, justice, and stewardship, so that together we may build the world we seek.

This morning, outside Union Station, a solo saxophonist improvised variations on the national anthem as we walked up to our work on the Hill.