We welcomed it with open arms and windows.
And with a St. Patrick's day trip to Washington DC.
We visited our long-time, Californian-turned-east-coaster friends Jordan and Kristy and spent the afternoon in DC, walking along the path where pink and white blossoms lined the streets and water for miles.
Kristy & Jordan and Rene & I on our walk to the monuments...
The Jefferson Memorial... I've been before once. But this day we took the time to read the quotes inscribed on the stone walls of the interior. The words were so beautiful and rang so true.
If you've never seen them, you can read the full inscriptions here.
My favorite was this....
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free..."
There's something about hearing those words spoken by men at a time that seems so long ago. About standing on the same steps as those who read those inscriptions for the first time.
It makes me see myself as much smaller and my potential as far greater.
We can look back at history and see so much change. We see how men and women saw the injustices before them and did something to make things different. And we still see injustice now. So then what? What is stopping us from speaking out, from creating and being change? What is stopping us from paving the way for those after us just as it's been paved by those before us? Someone will.
Let it be you and me.
I'm thankful for men like Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. Thankful that we can be reminded by these memorials of their lives that injustice ought not be tolerated and that individual people can make a difference.
And I'm thankful for Cherry Blossoms and sunshine.
Happy St. Patrick's Day
xo
Jess
