The Better Angels of Our Nature

For some reason this phrase has been floating around in my head this morning. I looked it up and found that it is from Lincoln's first inaugural address. It seems uncannily timely now:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stre[t]ching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

May our "mystic chords" of unity be touched again--as surely they will be--and may we even today recognize and welcome those better angels who, as the Talmud says, bend over each blade of grass (and each of us), whispering "Grow! Grow! Grow!"