According to news reports this morning, Senator McCain called Barack Obama at 10 p.m. to offer his congratulations on being elected the 44th president of the United States of America.

In the call, Mr. Obama said he was eager to sit down and talk with Mr. McCain; in his concession speech, Mr. McCain said he was ready to help Mr. Obama work through difficult times.

“I need your help,” Mr. Obama told McCain, according to an Obama adviser, Robert Gibbs. “You’re a leader on so many important issues.”

Mr. Bush called Mr. Obama shortly after 10 p.m. to congratulate him on his victory. “I promise to make this a smooth transition,” the president said to Mr. Obama, according to a transcript provided by the White House .“You are about to go on one of the great journeys of life. Congratulations, and go enjoy yourself.”

But Barack Obama didn't seem to be in a "go-enjoy-yourself" mood -- he left that to the crowds at Grant Park. He seemed moved, fully aware of the weightiness of the undertaking. He showed no illusion about how tough the road ahead will be. And in a way that touched my heart, he reached out with quiet grace.  

“To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn,” said President-Elect Obama, “I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president, too.”

I pray we all will join together now and work hard for a better country. This election, and this nation, is about WE the people. Here's to unity, support, and resolving our differences in civilized fashion toward a common goal -- a stronger, better America. I have always felt that diversity of ideas -- all voices at the table --  leads to better decision-making. As of today, I feel that we finally are on our way toward that better decision-making.   

What a wonderful country we have, and what historic day this is. Americans are truly blessed.  

Eleanor Roosevelt said that the only way to grow as a person was to do something new that scares you a little every day.  This election has scared -- and empowered me. I've pushed myself to get out there. I've dared to write about my thoughts in this blog. I've volunteered to campaign for a candidate -- Barack Obama -- for the first time ever in an election process. And as a result , I've met wonderful new friends who share a lot of my beliefs and ideals in what it will take to make this a better world. I've also renewed and reaffirmed friendship with others who don't share my views, but still have my utmost respect. I hope I have theirs as well.

In a lot of ways, this election is about being fearful versus being hopeful.

I am choosing to be hopeful.

Whoever wins today, I hope we can rally as a country round our new leader with unity of support. And with a loud, clear, confident, opinionated (but respectful)  voice. Becuase if this election has taught me anything, it's that the voice of the people matters. We must be heard. Or else it's not democracy.

Best way to do that today?

Please, vote.  

My cousin, who works for and with those with disabilities internationally, sent me this inspiring clip this morning. 

The vast proportion of agencies and initiatives for special needs in this country support Barack Obama for president.  (If Sarah Palin were voting only based on her child's welfare, she would reluctantly have to vote Obama too!)

Here's the track record, courtesy Independent Living USA: (http://www.ilusa.com/News/OBAMA-VS-MCCAIN.htm)

Change is hard.

And we haven't undergone this much tumultuous change as a country since Vietnam. We can all recite the litany of woes: two difficult wars, a tarnished international reputation, global climate change, a tanked economy. an interconnected global reality where we must borrow from China to pay the Middle East, and a terrible polarization of Americans into supposedly extremist camps of conservative and liberal.

It's true that we've stirred up ideological wars at home to parallel the desperately real ones abroad. America is experiencing a conflict of conviction. We don't know what it is anymore that grounds our common values as a people. And it occurs to me, in trying to puzzle all this out, that we are torn apart in all the ways human nature typically responds to change. We strike out. We draw in. We propose radical new solutions. We retreat, fearful, and glorify the past.

What does it mean to be conservative? There is this impulse to conserve, preserve, retreat into symbols of the familiar. We yearn for tradition, the symbolic vision of the perfect 1950s America, white picket fences, good decent neighbors, traditional family values, church on Sunday, helping hands from the community when you need it, every person with the same chance to get ahead, where hard work and determination will get you somewhere (and its corollary: If you don't get ahead, it must be because you don't have enough determination and you're not working hard enough). 

America today is more and more unrecognizable from this ideal (some would argue it ALWAYS was unrecognizable from this ideal) so what do we do when confronted with threats to our world view? We try to recapture it. We stubbornly cling to it and reject the new (for example, there can't possibly be climate change. Climates don't change. What happened to the good old days when being an American MEANT something? )

Then, we intensify the rules: We replace our mainline churches with fundamentalist churches that more strictly address our yearning for solid values. Amid these larger groups of fellow worshippers, we feel part of something that is whole, that is decent, again. And images become even more important, because it is a human need to have images, symbols, to define what we stand for -- especially when we need convincing, ourselves. The flag, the crosses, the fish symbols, the yellow ribbons, all the signs and trappings of a good, decent, traditional, values-based America gain unwieldy importance and undeserved sacredness in our minds, because it has become a slippery, hazardous world out there, and we want to belong to the 'right group,' the group that stands for the 'right things,' -- Human nature.  

Then there are those of us who advance unblinking into the new, those of us who embrace change -- sometimes recklessly, sometimes too casually -- and who are inclined to discard symbols of the past, real or imagined, to embrace an untested new reality. Those of us whose readings of history and experience in the world shows us there have always been flaws, always been injustices, and one can only learn from them and move on -- put faith in a better future. We can have nostalgia for the era of  white picket fences, while simultaneously wanting to just pick up and move the picket fences into a future where they'll actually fit. We realize we must embrace change or it will turn on us and bite us in the behind. We must manage it, mold it into the kind of world our best ideals require -- a world with equal opportunity, abounding new technologies all used for human good, a global spirit of cooperation.

This process of "managing change" is a messy business, however. Things can get lost -- valuable things -- in the translation, and it's hard to say goodbye. But other things -- perhaps more valuable things --  are gained.

How do we manage change? There is no strict right and wrong. The two approaches can be held in the same brain, by the same person, as often -- almost always -- happens. That's human nature. But we have to remember that change cannot be stopped. We cannot go back to a black-and-white Mayberry world. Hey, even the Amish change, adapt new ways that complement/enhance their belief systems. Change is our only constant in life on earth, and we resist it at our peril. So we need to learn to manage it effectively.

We manage change intelligently when we realize that fear of the unknown is human nature -- and can be overcome. Power-hungry politicians will always exploit our fear of the unknown, and we must think-- use our brains -- to carefully analyze what they say. A politician with a desperate agenda will not always represent an accurate version of the future to us. What that politician WILL always do, is exploit our fear to their advantage. Fear is a powerful vote-getter. Fear impedes change.

We manage change and balance our traditionalist and futurist selves well, when we understand that there are better, more profound ways to measure a person's character, ability, and integrity than whether or not a flag pin happens to be on their lapel today or how much their designer wardrobe cost. Does their outside behavior match their internal agenda -- does their 'walk' match their talk? Does it really? Has it historically? Do some objective research.   

We manage change effectively when we choose to educate ourselves from the abundance of diverse news and information sources available to us in this world -- not just from one or two sources we are already predisposed to agree with.

If you get your 'news' from one or two familiar sources, you are not learning. You are receiving propaganda reinforcement.

We manage change well when we realize that our emotions will get in the way, and we need to account for that, and set our baser knee-jerk emotions of fear, ignorance, bigotry, to the side.  Cries of "impending Communism!" "Arab!" "Terrorist!" and the like? This is an infantile abuse of our emotions for political gain. A little bit of education, objective information, and this castle of fear crumbles to bits. The question is, do we have enough education and worldliness to realize this? Can we summon enough sophistication of thought to overcome the fearmongering?   

Most importantly, most incredibly importantly, we manage change well when we think not only of our own back yards, but of the big-picture: How will our decisions affect not only our generation, but out, as the Native American expression has it, to the Seventh Generation?  When we acknowledge that the health of the full nation, the greater good, our children's children's future -- when we realize this is a nobler goal than our own personal immediate tax break or gain -- we are being most truly American.

Wasn't that the most noble of our conservative traditional American values? The greater good?  

Let's try not to get tangled in the desperate, last-ditch namecalling and fearmongering. Let's do our own, dispassionate, informed research. Let's not allow ourselves to be emotionally manipulated by those desperate for power. And let's vote not just for our own personal gain, but for the future interests of the seventh generation. 

We are more or less seven generations removed from our founding fathers. What will our progeny think of us, when they reflect back 250 years from now?