Dressing up for Inauguration Day

Today is Inauguration Day — the day a new President of the United States is installed. And I am insatiably curious about it all: the history of inaugurations, the drama behind the peaceful transfer of power, who’s going to be there (and not be there). Questions like, How do they move the old family in and the new family out in under a day? What do outgoing presidents feel while their successor is giving an inauguration speech about how he’s going to reverse everything his predecessor worked so hard to accomplish?

I woke up feeling oddly happy, even though I had the burden of endless curiosity upon me. I looked in my closet to see what I wanted to wear today, and the answer came back to me in the form of my hand being drawn nearer and nearer to one of my favorite blue suit jackets. Where I live is a pretty casual town, and so it’s not often that I choose to wear something fancier. You just end up getting comments.

But today, I knew what needed to happen. I was going to dress up for Inauguration Day.

Soon after, I wondered, Who am I dressing up for? Myself? Or the President-elect?

I think the answer is both. Because today is not just a day to show respect to those in office — it’s a day to remind myself that as a member of a Federal Republic, power is held by each person, however small their domain of influence or plot of land. This country belongs to the people who reside in it, and the person who we elect as President is one of those people who will lead the nation for four years and then pass the baton to another. The cycle goes on. What I marvel at, both in myself and in others, is the tendency to be wholly focused on how this one person is spending their days to the neglect of how I spend my own.

Instead of obsessing about all the Executive Orders to be signed and set into motion on Day 1 of the Presidency, what Executive Orders can I write? What can I change today in my sphere of influence that would improve the lives of those around me? How do I want to wield the power vested in me for the common good of my family, my neighbor, my church, my city?

Go ahead and dress up properly for the role you have. Put some things into motion and see what happens. Act like you’ve got a stake in the game. Because “in real life,” as my 5-year-old son likes to say, you do.