You might think, judging from its title, that this blog entry will be a lament on what it’s like to visit Washington DC when the temperature is 98 degrees and the heat index is 104. But no, as much as we’ve melted here in DC, it really hasn’t slowed us down all that much or prevented us from having a fine time.
No, I’m thinking of the Melting Pot that is the United States – and increasingly, our whole world. If anything has been a surprise on this trip, it is the amazing array of humanity that we have encountered on this trip. As we walked around Arlington National Cemetery, I heard French, Russian, and Japanese spoken. As we rode the elevator to the tower of the Old Post Office, the family with us spoke German. And at the Lincoln Memorial, the busiest of all the sites we visited, it was amazing and wonderful to see people from all over the globe posing for a picture in front of that magnificent statue of Abraham Lincoln. We saw something similar at DisneyLand – but somehow it was not all that surprising to see three children from China posing with Mickey. But to think that people from the other side of the globe are drawn to the memorial of America’s sixteenth president is astounding to me. And it makes me proud to think that someone from our history – and someone of such humble origins from the heart of the midwest – would be so greatly revered. . . and rightly so.
“. . . Let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
pictured above: one of many families from other countries we saw posing in front of the Lincoln statue