Last weekend I was in Washington, D.C. for a work thing. It was an interesting experience to be in the nation’s capital city at this time. Here is one reflection I had:
If you look under the hood, there’s still enough to work with. What if we can get this thing running again?
There was a video floating around social media a while ago:
These guys are trying to get this beat up junker of a car running again. They punch out the glass, rip up the seats and hot-wire the engine, but eventually they get the car running. They drive away hollering in glee.
I thought of that video yesterday as we toured the Capitol building and then later as we toured the monuments. The tour guide at the Capitol was amazing, and kept coming back to how this country was founded on “We the people…” The Constitution is a contract that CAN be renegotiated and revised. Plenty of history is remembered incorrectly. The Founding Fathers had some good ideas, but were also deeply flawed. Those were the highlights.
As he lifted up the hood and described how the car was originally designed and built, I saw the whole thing in a new way. Right now it feels like a wreck. But what if there’s enough of the original stuff to restore it? That stuff of the original design…the vision of the designers and manufacturers…what if there’s enough of that stuff still in there somewhere? What if the best wisdom and vision of those represented by the monuments was not forgotten? What if the devastation and hurt was addressed honestly and directly?
We’ve gotten off track and added all this stuff that makes driving hard. Some would say there were some significant flaws in the original that need to be re-done altogether. Some really important parts aren’t working the way they should. We may need to pull up the seats, remove the glass and hot-wire the starter. But…what if there’s enough in the guts of the machine that can be repaired?
What if this vehicle CAN run again???