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Hill: Mandela and the Breckenridge day care debate

Opinions concerning day care subsidies in Breckenridge have recently appeared in the Summit Daily imposing an agenda of second class citizenship upon our children based upon the premise “we earned it and we’ll decide where it goes” versus “we don’t have it and we don’t know what to do to survive”.

Eliminated from the debate is leadership willing to pay a greater price for a better education for our children—leaders rising above the lack of vision languishing in the mediocrity of our own self-serving affluence.

Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) died last week a man who will be remembered not only for aspirations so stubbornly and eloquently voiced but also for virtues many of his time lacked. One of the world’s most beloved statesmen—when he emerged from 27 years in prison to negotiate an end to white apartheid in South Africa—South Africa’s first black president, the ex-boxer, lawyer and prisoner No. 46664 paved the way for racial reconciliation. His most memorable gesture came when he walked onto the pitch before the 1995 Rugby World Cup final in Johannesburg in South African colors to congratulate the victorious South African Springboks with the overwhelming white crowd of 63,000 chanting “Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!”



Instead of squabbling over day care, seek to instill great leadership qualities and character in our children best expressed in a quote from Nelson Mandela’s inaugural address in 1994: “Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, famous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not served the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people [children] the permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Stop playing small, squabbling about day care while denying our children the opportunity of hearing Mandela’s vision within their own hearts and becoming a 21st century Mandela themselves.



Bud Hill

Breckenridge


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