{"id":152,"date":"2008-08-14T10:16:05","date_gmt":"2008-08-14T10:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/why-is-this-so-inspiring.html"},"modified":"2008-08-14T10:16:05","modified_gmt":"2008-08-14T10:16:05","slug":"why-is-this-so-inspiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/why-is-this-so-inspiring.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Is this So Inspiring?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My wife had to ask me three times before I consented to watch this video, which most of the rest of America has already seen.I did watch it last night, and it almost brought me to tears of happiness.  What&#8217;s more, I keep thinking: why is this so inspiring? It involves no handicapped child getting a game winning hit in a little league game.  It&#8217;s just a very goofy guy doing a very goofy dance in a bunch of different places.  Yet it somehow taps into a something deep &#8212; a common human impulse toward joy, which transcends nation, race or dancing skill.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><object width=\"400\" height=\"225\"><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.vimeo.com\/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1211060&amp;server=www.vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.vimeo.com\/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1211060&amp;server=www.vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\"><\/embed><\/object><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vimeo.com\/1211060?pg=embed&amp;sec=1211060\">Where the Hell is Matt? (2008)<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vimeo.com\/user484313?pg=embed&amp;sec=1211060\">Matthew Harding<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com?pg=embed&amp;sec=1211060\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/div>\n<p>Did it touch you? Why?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My wife had to ask me three times before I consented to watch this video, which most of the rest of America has already seen.I did watch it last night, and it almost brought me to tears of happiness. What&#8217;s more, I keep thinking: why is this so inspiring? It involves no handicapped child getting&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Is this So Inspiring? - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/why-is-this-so-inspiring.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Is this So Inspiring? - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My wife had to ask me three times before I consented to watch this video, which most of the rest of America has already seen.I did watch it last night, and it almost brought me to tears of happiness. What&#8217;s more, I keep thinking: why is this so inspiring? It involves no handicapped child getting&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/why-is-this-so-inspiring.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-14T10:16:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Is this So Inspiring? - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/why-is-this-so-inspiring.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Is this So Inspiring? - Steven Waldman","og_description":"My wife had to ask me three times before I consented to watch this video, which most of the rest of America has already seen.I did watch it last night, and it almost brought me to tears of happiness. 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He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. 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