counting other people's blessings...

A family friend is buying a house. She is a recent graduate from pharmacy school, started working in a great job less than two years ago. Actually having the house built, so she gets to pick and choose, and have it done just the way she wants.This is All Absolutely Amazing to me. I am so excited for her, and delighted to know that she is doing so well in her career, and life, putting down roots and getting established, making her way in the world, and in the community of her choosing.

But what really strikes me as remarkable is that she is a She.

I think about the fact that forty years ago, women did not routinely own property, make major purchases like homes (or even minor ones like appliances without consulting the man who would be doing the paying) or have the opportunity to be out in the community holding  responsible positions of authority.
And eighty years ago, women were second class, not fully 'citizens', ornaments in men's lives, decorative additions that were sometimes respected, often inconveient, frequently thought of as brainless and inconsequential, regularly considered incapable of making informed decisions.
And a hundred years ago, women did not have the right to vote at the polls, not capable of making intelligent choices about politics and leaders within the community and nation

And two hundred years ago WE were the 'property'.

You can gripe all you want about the US, politics, the American system, Democracy, One Nation Under God: but you also better be counting your blessings, and thankful for all the people who gave you the right to gripe.