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OMbama and a Call to Service
By Kitty | January 13, 2009
This morning after flipping through my most recent copy of Yoga Journal, I flopped it down onto the couch and noticed the back cover for the first time. It almost made me laugh outloud, but it’s so clever at the same time. The full back cover consists of an ad for lululemon athletica, a quite popular yoga clothing and supply brand. However, nowhere did it say lululemon, or anything about the brand or the products. Instead, across the top it had “OMbama” in huge letters, with the lululemon logo in the letter O…. then (and this is the part that made me laugh) is a big cartoon of Barack Obama in lotus, with the Obama logo behind. I took a picture of it and posted it here so that you can actually see it, too. Its a very Zen looking picture and very well done–so clever, and I really didn’t expect to see our future president doing yoga on the back of the magazine! I really love the ad, though, and the thought of Barack Obama doing yoga is a great one. He seems like the type of person who would practice yoga and embody the peaceful and positive mindset that goes along with a regular yoga practice. That thought makes me so excited and hopeful and happy that he is going to be our president oh-so-soon!!
Seeing this advertisement also started me thinking about how Obama has made a national call to public service for this weekend and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I think it’s fantastic that he is encouraging and openly requesting that EVERYone get out and serve the people in his/her own community. Like he said in his acceptance speech, one man cannot change the state of our country all by his lonesome. But all of us together CAN make a difference. I really believe that for every one person you help, even if it’s something as small as holding the door open for them at the store, or smiling at them as you pass them on the street, will make a huge impact on the positivity of the world and of society in general. I’m excited that our President-Elect has the mindset “Yes we can!”. It reminds me of something my 6th grade teacher always said: “If you say you can’t, you’re right. If you say you can, you’re right.” It’s inspiring to know how many people and organizations are coming together to serve those in need. I’m planning on getting out and serving my community this weekend, I’m just not sure what I’ll be doing yet.
The Sierra Club has a National Day of Service website with lots of information and project locations, in case you are looking for a local service project: http://www.sierraclub.org/NDOS/ Click the link to the left, or click the picture below to Sign up for a Sierra Club event, or to plan one in your own neighborhood.
And in closing this yoga-obama-service blog post, I’ll leave you with a quote from a recent Obama speech that is particularly inspiring to me (it was cited from an article on msnbc which is linked HERE). I think it rings true… and I have faith in the goodness of America’s youth!
“I know what the cynics will say. I’ve heard from them all my life. These are the voices that will tell you — not just what you can’t do — but what you won’t do. Americans won’t come together — our allegiance doesn’t go beyond our political party, or our race, or our region, or our religion, our congregations,” he said. “Young Americans they won’t serve their country — they’re too selfish, they’re too apathetic, they’re too lazy. This is the soft sell of the status quo, the voice that tells you to settle because settling isn’t that bad. That’s not the America that I’ve seen throughout this campaign.”
I think that we can come together… and we can put the service of those in need way higher on our list of priorities… and I think this weekend and Monday are a great time to start! So get out there and serve your community! Maybe you could join in on a community yoga class while you’re at it! OMbama! Om!
Topics: Daily Update, Inspirations, Yoga | 1 Comment »
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
In honor of Obama’s call to service, I am selling prints of my collages and donating 10% of all monthly sales (if those sales total more than $100) to help purchase computers for schools in lower income areas. The link to my store is http://megmcgrath.etsy.com – I was just featured on one of the top design blogs too: http://sfgirlbybay.blogspot.com/2009/01/shop-for-change.html