RIP Elijah Cummings

My mission is one that comes out of a vision that was created long, long ago.  It is a mission and a vision to empower people. ... to make people realize that the power is within them, that they too can do the things that they want to do.

There's a poem that Parren Mitchell said many many years ago that I say sometimes 20 times a day, and it's a very simple poem, but it's one that I live by.

    I only have a minute.
    Sixty seconds in it.
    Forced upon me, I did not choose it.
    But I know that I must use it,
    give account if I abuse it,
    suffer if I lose it.
    Only a tiny little minute,
    but eternity is in it.

-- Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) (18 January 1951 - 17 October 2019), in his first speech from the floor of the House of Representatives, shortly after he was sworn into Congress by then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on 25 April 1996, citing a poem written by Civil Rights pioneer Dr. Benjamin Mays, which he credited Mitchell as reciting many times.