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The inauguration is fast approaching. On Tuesday, January 20th, we will swear in Barack Obama as president. Regardless of your political party or where you land on the conservative/liberal spectrum, there can be no doubt that this is a Big Day.
This is a Very Big Day.
And, since America is a leader in the free world, it is a day launching an administration that will be watched with unprecedented scrutiny.
We are in dire straights. The work that it will take to resurrect the economy and the presence of our beloved country will not be inconsequential. The hand that touches the Bible at the swearing-in also carries the weight of our dreams and hopes and prayers for ourselves, our families, our communities and our nation.
I am asking us all to uphold and direct that hand with our expressed prayers, hopes and wishes.
As you look forward to the next four years, what are your thoughts and wishes for our country and for the Obama Administration? What is the Spirit of America that you would like to see? What change do you dream of for the next years? What would you hope does not change?
The feelings and prayers and thoughts and wishes that we have about our country effect the eventual realities. To express a dream is the first step in getting it into action.
So let's take a second to provide the energy that will help keep that hand steady that is going to be on the Bible Tuesday. Let's imagine ourselves as creating the small blocks of energy that can keep ideals visible and moving forward. What are the most treasured of those ideals?
If you were giving the Inaugural Invocation, what would you say?
What would you most want people (including the president) to be thinking about at the beginning of this presidency? What tone would you want to set? What spiritual message would you want people to take with them from this day?
The New York Times did a survey of 200 people in 14 states -- half red, half blue and asked them what they thought was most important for the next administration. They grouped the responses in 29 categories that you can see (and vote on) by clicking here.
Rev Irene Monroe at Pam's house blend says to Obama:
... many of us LGBTQ Americans and our allies are speaking out.
"President-Elect Obama, many of us will be at your inauguration. We will dance and party and drink a toast to your success upon which so many hopes are tethered. But, you have to understand that we are once again coming to Washington DC to cash a check. Yes, like the 1963 March on Washington, organized by a black gay man, Bayard Rustin, we LGBT people have been given the same promissory note that is the heritage and pride of every American," Sylvia Rhue, Director of Religious Affairs for National Black Justice Coalition, the only African American gay civil rights organization in the country wrote in an op-ed on the Huffington Post. "The right to pursue life, liberty and happiness, the riches of freedom and the security of justice."
The burden of unfulfilled hopes and rights is strong. The pressure of things left undone for many years is strong.
Kathryn Stanley, says that after the election, she:
...felt haunted by Dr. King’s rhetorical question: Where Do We Go From Here?
King’s question was answered in part during the holidays, during my mother’s family and friends’ holiday celebration when at some point my six-year-old God-son Jason said to his parents, “This feels like family.” Not a philosophical statement at first blush given that nearly all his immediate family was present. It was, however, the mix of others in the room that made Jason’s statement so profound. For therein sat a Catholic nun, a biracial young man with a hip-hop swagger, an interracial same-sex couple, Katrina evacuees, black, white, Protestants, and Catholics, ages five to nearly 65 years old, all singing carols about the Great Liberator. Through familiar songs, Jason heard only love through the voices of God’s children.
I hope that January 20, 2009, and beyond will also “feel like family.” Like all families, we will have differences and dysfunction. Yet, I hope that we will sit at the table of humanity together, working to end poverty and other social injustices. I hope that all that we do as a nation henceforth will be rooted in a love for all humankind. Our legacy and destiny inextricably
