Continuance |
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Continuance Spring / Summer 2003Let us make a new storyRemarks given by Robert R. Archibald, Chair, National Bicentennial Council, at Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia, January 18, 2003 for the commencement of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. If we distill the expedition to its essentials we grasp in our hands a time telescope; an opportunity to look back in time and see, however shadowy, a huge chunk of our nation and the people who inhabited it two hundred years ago. What is so striking is how different it is now. How much it has all changed. Forces of nature did not cause most of the change but rather change resulted from choices made by humans. Americans worry about how we humans impact the world around us especially as margins for error have narrowed. We know that what we do here and now will decide the future. Using the Lewis and Clark Expedition as a measuring device, let us evaluate what has been done well and what has not been done well in the intervening two centuries and let us resolve to make choices that respect our legacies and ameliorate our burdens. I am struck by the fact that at any point during the
expedition's trek, tribes could easily have wiped out the interlopers
but did not. I am amazed at the cultural exchange that took place and
especially the extent to which expedition members learned, albeit as a
necessity for survival, to see the world around them as American Indians
saw it. Can we too learn to step beyond the confines of our place and
time, and stand in the shoes of others setting aside presumptions of the
primacy of our own ways? This kind of empathy seems sorely needed in our
age both in the streets and neighborhoods of our towns and cities and
in the evolving global community that people of Lewis and Clark's
time could not have imagined. In the bewildering wake of September 11
and with the potential of war looming we yearn for amity between people
and other kinds of answers. In this story we can find outlines of possibilities.
Finally let us revel in an extraordinarily good story; a tale of adventure,
risk, courage and perseverance, friendship and respect. Let us commemorate
respectful relations between people. Let us see a land trod lightly
by humans who inhabited it. Let us make a new story, with new possibilities
that opens the possibilities of re-imagining a sacred land, and forging
human relationships built upon empathy and mutual respect. And let us
have fun and find excitement |