Sunday Drive: The Spark of Greatness

(Photo: coloroflincoln.com, which has more colorized images of the sixteenth president.)

The past week could hardly have gone better, and the nation's joy could hardly be greater at the commencement of the 44th President's term of office. Although his significance as the first African-American to hold the office cannot be denied, yet from another point of view, Obama seems to me an Everyman figure: the hardworking guy from humble origins whose efforts have been crowned with success in a still-youthful middle age; the husband still very much in love with his wife, the devoted father of two adorable little girls: a man neither arrogant nor subservient, but strong, smart, capable, and confident.

A popular guy, a very likeable sort. Someone everybody wants to know, everyone would like to count as a friend. A guy everyone envies, but nobody is jealous of. The kind of guy we would all like to be, if we could: successful, popular, well-adjusted. Loved - by all but the most narrow-minded and bitter-hearted.

He and his lady made a lovely picture the other night, dancing cheek to cheek at the ball, as they did watching the parade, waving and smiling, their children at their side. Had the circumstances of his life, the accidents of history, been different - had he ended up, instead of at the White House, as simply your neighbor down the street, or one of the middle managers where you work - you might find yourself thinking still: "Now that guy has it made, he has it all." Without grudging him the least bit of happiness.

Some people, so it seems, are just lucky that way. Sometimes all the bits and pieces of life come together in an exceedingly neat pattern, whether by design or accident: just the right amounts and the right kinds of nature, nurture, temperament, ability, and opportunity. For others, perhaps, through no fault of their own, a deficiency here, a defect there, too much of this, too little of that, make a jagged pattern, or an incomplete one. But for some few, at least, the application of the will to a fortunate pattern granted by fate makes a winning combination indeed.

I have wondered, though, what motivates a man like that to put it all on the line, to place himself at great risk of losing all that - which many another man or woman might sincerely wish for and strive all their life to attain, yet never possess - what animates such a man in the depths of his being to move his life out of such a happy orbit, which he might maintain indefinitely without too much effort? Why disrupt, endanger, the pretty pattern for an uncertain achievement?

I don't know, can't say. An ambition of some kind - yes, certainly - though in this particular case it seems to be one that is not merely for the sake of self, but for the betterment of others. A noble aim - though as history has all too often shown, a sometimes thankless, even dangerous one.

And yet, it seems to me upon further reflection, the making of greatness lies in that very course of action: not drawing back to preserve one's own happiness, but reaching out for that greater good of their neighbors.

Most of us do not have that spark of greatness in us - that combination of determination and selflessness. Our highest dreams, if we dared lay them bare for inspection, rise to a much lower height: winning the lottery, building the perfect house, finding the handsome lover. We are too full of ourselves, too preoccupied with me and my. Our vision reaches no higher than our own rooftop. That is our common human nature: to want our own needs met - and if possible, exceeded - before we consider the needs of our neighbors.

And yet, uncommonly, every now and then, some one of us breaks away from the crowd, and reaches out for something higher, something better, not counting the cost, not fearing the risk. A mere mortal, like the rest of us - but one on whom a divine ambition rests, a divine fire burns in the heart. Such women, such men, we call great; for they exceed, transcend, the ordinary limitations of our human race. Within themselves, they bear a glory in this world, which lights the way through the darkness that surrounds our beginning and our end; they walk a shining path of service and of love the rest of us may follow.

Their hearts are restless until they glow in the pure, bright flame of eternity.

. . . How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. . . .

. . . . . . . . . .

Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

--from Robert Browning, "Ulysses"