President Obama has named 16 people to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the USA’s highest civilian honor, specifically naming them as “agents of change.”
I like having a smart president. I like having people in power who, whatever they may do that pisses me off, come from the same basic perspective that I do: freedom is a verb. We aren’t “free to do” or “free to be” (fill in the blank) because god or our daddy says so, or because a judge bangs her gavel, or because we’re just entitled to it as human beings. We are free to do or be because we get in there and change things; laws, attitudes, social mores, art, pop culture. We have thoughtful conversations, and we stand with ten thousand others and yell as loud as we can. We blog, we write songs, we make videos, we donate our time or our money to an organization that is making space for something we care about. Space for new ways of seeing, of hearing, of being.
Space for more people to have the same choices we do, or even more choices.
Some people get their freedom — their choices, their space — and want to close the gates against any more change. But we don’t get to be free of change: we only get to be free, and stay free, through it. When we make more space for others, there’s more for us too, regardless of what the fearful will tell you. That’s freedom.
The Medal of Freedom Honorees (see the article for short bios of each)
Nancy Goodman Brinker
Pedro José Greer, Jr.
Stephen Hawking
Jack Kemp
Sen. Edward Kennedy
Billie Jean King
Rev. Joseph Lowery
Joe Medicine Crow — High Bird
Harvey Milk
Sandra Day O’Connor
Sidney Poitier
Chita Rivera
Mary Robinson
Janet Davison Rowley
Desmond Tutu
Muhammad Yunus
Thanks for the link Kelley, a very inspiring list indeed… What a change to read something that honours people “we” admire in our everyday lives.