Election Day 2008

Election Day 2008 has a date with the history books. Someday someone might ask you what it was like. Here's how I'll remember it.

I woke up to brilliant sunshine pour in through the windows. It was a perfect day in Chicago. And there was no doubt in my mind that Barack Obama would win the Presidency. Especially after our trip to the park after breakfast.

We went for breakfast up on Division at a cafe called Milk and Honey. My 15 month old son, Kaleb and I ran up and down the sidewalk in our Obama t-shirts, while my wife and her mom ordered the coffee, pancakes and breakfast burritos.

To help digest and enjoy the morning, we hit Wicker Park and it was packed with kids and parents basking in the dayshine.

Kaleb immediately went to work, making his way through every piece of equipment in the park. On the second lap, I did a doubletake and had the odd experience of mistaking another little boy for my own.

He and Kaleb looked at each other. They could have been twins or two halves of one mirror. They had the same exact hair color. Skin tone. Eyelashes. Eye color. And that same gentle, cheeky look. Truly uncanny.

I pointed out this uncanniness to the boy's father and we did introductions. His boy's name was Joshua.

Joshua and Kaleb. Huh. On this of all days.

Later that evening... once the hard-count of electoral votes gave way to sentimentality, the notion of the 'Joshua Generation' was touched-upon by analysts.

And there stood Jesse Jackson of the Moses Generation. The distant, teary-eyed stare of a time-traveler as you imagined him bouncing between 1968, 1988 and 2008.

In Leviticus, the other ten scouts said it couldn't be done. Joshua and Caleb were the only believers. They said the promise could be attained. They called it the land of Milk and Honey. Their faith pleased God. Nevertheless, their people were forced to wander the desert for forty years.

When the time came to enter the Promised Land, of the elders-- Moses included, only Joshua and Caleb were allowed to enter.
Rewarded for their belief, they were chosen to lead the people, the Joshua Generation, into the next chapter.

All Joshua Generations are established on the same belief that God is within us, that opportunity outweighs the threat of challenge, and the firmly-rooted faith of "Yes We Can".

And so the next chapter begins.