It was hugely historic as a whole ... even if not, I found, terribly memorable in its parts. Obama's oratory didn't soar any more than did John Williams' music. But who cares: the endless nightmare of the Bush years is over - glory halleluia!! Or, as this satellite picture seems to want to say: far out! And we have a thinking president unafraid to level with us, and ready to lead us to remake America. (But notice that the world has changed, and all our changes - the change we've been waiting for - must change with it.)The inauguration did provide some interesting grist for a religionist's mill, though. There was Obama's Pauline call to the nation to grow up (1 Corinthians 13:11), and his unprecedented acknowledgment of American Hindus - and nonbelievers. But I'm referring, of course, to the clerical trio of Gene Robinson, Rick Warren and Joseph Lowery. All Protestants (sort of), all men, all calling us to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God, but interestingly different... It's worth reading all three. They bespeak not just different moods of Christianity, but different Christianities.
Bishop Robinson's Blessing, which kicked off the inaugural festivities yesterday, struck me as prophetic but somewhat dark. He'd made a point of not saying anything specifically Christian, but could he not have spoken of joy and hope and solidarity and such? Why the somber tone: Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS. Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future... I don't think he's embittered by the Warren fracas, though I'm sure many of his friends are. My guess is that Robinson tailored his comments to the man Obama, who's consulted with him several times in recent months about the challenges of being "the first" of something. It may reflect an important element in our new president's soberly energetic Niebuhrian sensibilities.
Pastor Rick Warren's Invocation seemed to me aggressively humble - or do I just mean aggressive? Appealing to Judaism and Islam in its opening, it ended with a testimonial to the saving power of Christ: Yeshua, Isa, Jesús, Jesus. (Jesus wasn't mentioned in this way in an inauguration before 2001, I gather [actually it's only the use of Jesus' name that's really new; compare past invocations], and before 1937 inaugurations had no prayers at all.) Warren's text is harmless enough when you read it, even nice, but his manner in reciting it was hard, his consonants harsh. He may have felt defiant in the face of hostility from the crowd (he's got a martyr complex these days), but the words, too, describe a God of judgment (may we never forget that one day all nations and all people will stand accountable before you) and mercy, not of love. The last months have changed Warren's public persona, and perhaps his constituency. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Now that the iron fist is visible beneath his Hawaiian glove, he'll appeal more to conservative Evangelicals (though they've been suspicious of him in the past) and less to the moralistic therapeutic deists who make up most of the land.
Where I felt the love was in Reverend Lowery's Benediction, which began with a verse of "Lift every voice and sing" (sometimes called the Negro National Hymn [the same words ended Sharon Watkins' sermon at the National Prayer Service on the 21st]) and ended with some knowingly retro black liberationist rhymes which delighted many (but not all). It was the most Biblical - as in this lovely weaving together of Micah 4:3-4 and Amos 5:24 with the Gospel's repeated injunction, "be not afraid"): With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. But the vision of each with her or his own vine and fig tree (a favorite, apparently, also of George Washington) is universal: where Warren's vision narrowed, Lowery's opens out in love: because we know you got the whole world in your hands, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations. Lowery's faith is blessed with tears and anger, but also with love and hope.Not sure where this leaves us - the trajectory from prophecy through defiance to love may or may not have been what Obama intended. I'll leave you with Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem, "Praise song for the day," which is also about the transformative power of love:
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."
We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.
