Not Inspiring or Profound

I have perhaps only one Facebook friend who is a vocal Obama fan.  Her name is Almaz, and I learned to know her when we were both Sterling College students.  She is, in fact, one of two students I learned to know there with that same first name.  The other one is the sister of a third student, who since then became Miss Ethiopia, and now has her own fashion consultation business in the US.  All of them were from Ethiopia, and all of them were Christians.  When I first learned to know them, their country was Communist, and they had to leave the country furtively to come to America, but their Christian parents were desperate to get them to a safe place elsewhere, and they made the necessary arrangments.  At least two of them live now in the US.

Even without Almaz' posts I had a few Obama-fan thoughts of my own recently, and it dawned on me that it's because he reminds me in some ways of my brothers and other good men.  Of course, thankfully none of my brothers issue executive orders that mess with people's ideas of what is right and wrong in gender matters.  Neither do they support abortion rights. For those things I do not admire Obama.  I am also thankful that, unlike Obama, none of my brothers has ever idealized seeking political office.

Like Obama, my brothers are, however, cool and collected.  They're intelligent and articulate.  They are not philanderers, but care for their families and remain loyal to them.  They do not typically rush in "where angels fear to tread." They feel no need to make race an issue, ever.  Like Obama's family, ours has individuals of various racial/ethnic flavors.  They aim to settle differences by discourse and negotiation--not by issuing threats or launching attacks (my brothers' record on this is better than Obama's, and Obama's is better than that of many past presidents).  My brothers are affable.  They do not ostracize those who are marginalized in society.  They treat others fairly and respectfully.

In spite of a fairly humble upbringing, Obama and my brothers are at home in a wide variety of settings--not in the centers of power, in my brothers' case, but in academic settings, in foreign countries, in wild places, on basketball courts, in poverty-stricken areas of large cities.  My brothers are more at home on farms than Obama is, and Obama combines in his persona more of those "at-home" places than any single one of my brothers does.

I apologize if you were hoping for something inspiring and profound.  Attempts at those kinds of thoughts have had to go in other directions of late, and I don't have a lot to spare here just now.