Saturday, March 20th, 2010 10:23:13

We Still Have Hope; Now We Want Change

I began running 23 years ago, during a summer when I was living in Washington, D.C.

Since then, during visits to the nation’s capital, I run the same six-mile route I ran then: from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and back. Some years I am faster than others, but my goal is always to finish — time does not matter. Last week, I ran that same route.

My favorite part of the run occurs midway through, when I run up the stairs to the Lincoln Memorial and pause to read the inscriptions in the memorial — the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. The Gettysburg Address, delivered on Nov. 19, 1863, closes with the phrase, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”