“I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, do solemnly swear . . .”
as I am running with my children headed toward Eleanor and dinner awaiting us at our summer home in Canada.
Later in the evening after dinner, I am not feeling well and retire to bed for the evening. I will never walk again without leg braces. I am privileged to descend into a crucible – an unspeakable mystery –
“that I will faithfully execute the office of the President”
Floating in a pool of healing water in Warm Springs, Georgia, on a lovely spring day – opening my eyes, I can see white puffy clouds set in a vibrant blue sky. I can hear screams of play and laughter of children, touched by polio as my life has. We are all experiencing the grace of weightlessness – no up, nor down; no left, nor right.
I once held positions as New York State Senator as well as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the war to end all wars.
Now I show these children how to face polio and all its likely shame and terror. Right here at Warm Springs, we travel together, as I did years earlier, to find a way to freedom through nature, work, humor, and love. The power I have come to know from the bitter journey from lifeless paralysis and hiding in humiliation to courageously overcoming infirmity through ecstasy and love. Heavenly as floating may be as a regular citizen . . .
“. . . of the United States of America . . .”
I choose to return to my former occupation as a political leader, knowing well the slings and arrows of grave misfortune that befall men of prominence and stature. I will wholeheartedly . . .
“and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. . .”
in a time of unfathomable darkness – 25% of workers unemployed, all banks closed in almost all the states, and much of our national wealth evaporated in a devastating financial crash.
Yet the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
“So help me God.”
C.G. Jung wrote: “Only those people who really can touch bottom can truly be human.”
Please watch this video by creative writing professor, Nils Peterson, on the two secrets of writing poetry:
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