America, Red and Blue, they're on our doorsteps. What will we do?

[Stinky The Clown]

More than anything else, what I shall remember from this week's awful events is the people. Those tear stained, mostly black, faces of the women and children, the elderly, the wheel chair bound, the crying, the abandoned.

They came from the wind and the rain and the flood and the horror of the Dantesian traps that were to be their shelter from the storm.

And they came to our doorsteps. They rang the bell.

Look through your front door, America. See the tear stained faces waiting for you to let them in. Smell them, America. Smell the fear, the need, the stink of the ordeals they faced and survived. Smell the toxic water that soaks their clothing. Smell them, America.

They are now among us, America. Those very same people that existed only in the abstract. They existed for you as simply excited electrons on the glass screen of your television. They're there, now, on our doorsteps. Their humanity is there. Ringing the bell.

This could be the start of a paradigm shift in our nation. Or it could signal the continuation of the exclusion and hatred that has gripped us for the last five years.

In Red America and in Blue America they have come. They're holding little babies. They're asking for dialysis or blood pressure medication. They're asking for diapers and water. A hot meal.

A dry bed in which to rest and recover.

And to regroup. A place from which to start the rebuilding.

But is rebuilding enough? How about revising? Revise Life in America. Make us a better place. Change the exclusion. Not a hand out. A hand up.

These are us, America.

Red America and Blue America. How will you respond?

When they show up on your doorstep.

Will you open your door and your heart?

Or just your door?

Or ... maybe .... nothing.

Red and Blue America. How will you respond?

Take care of just your own?

Those people at your door? The ones with the black faces? They ARE your own, Red and Blue America.

More than at any time, this is THE time. The time to do one simple thing.

Open your doors.

And let 'your own' in.

I have faith in our country. I still do. The national delusion of the last five years is not America. It is a terrible aberration.

Opening our doors, America.

That is who we are.

And we must not be satisfied with rebuilding. Rebuilding is not enough. Not even half enough.

No. We need to be revisioning. We need to REVISE Life in America.

I have little doubt America will open its doors. We always have.

But now. Now we need to keep those doors open. We need to watch. We need to keep track of the REVISIONING of America.

Revise America. Rebuilding is simply too easy. And simply not enough.