Congratulations Are In Order!

MadPriest is celebrating his 1,000,000th visitor. Go over there and congratulate him, or he will never forgive you - or me for not telling you. Of course, I can't vouch for the numbers, and he could be making the whole thing up, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

No Matter Who Is President....

In preparation for the incoming President, a broken fence at the White House was recently repaired.

Before the repairs were completed, three contractors were called in to bid for the opportunity to fix the broken fence at the White House in DC: One is from New York, another is from Tennessee and the third, is from Florida .

All three went with a White House official to examine the fence.

The Florida contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. "Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew, and $100 profit for me."

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew, and $100 profit for me."

The New York contractor doesn't measure OR figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700."

The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"

The New York contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence."

"Done!" replies the government official. And that, my friends, is how government contracting works!

I'm afraid that last sentence is more true than I'd like to think.

Don't blame me, blame Doug. And on the eve of the inauguration!

"The Last Token"

A poem from Tobias Haller's Thought For Inauguration:

The Last Token

Let not Barack Obama
be just another token,
pointed to as proof —
sign of one race's victory
or another's tolerance.

Let not this new beginning
be conceived of as an end,
as something we've accomplished;
for we still have far,
so very far, to go.

Rather let this be
a true inauguration,
a new beginning.

Let him not be
just one more sign or symbol,
but an efficacious sacramental presence;
real flesh and blood,
present and vocal:
to call us all
to sweat and tears,
to set our hands to work
to do the many tasks
that lie before us.

Let this be
the end of tokens,
signs and symbols of deceptive promise;
let this be
the inauguration,
not the benediction,
of our hopes.

Let this be
in form and substance
active and alive;
not contented evening,
but the hopeful dawn.

Tobias Haller BSG

As I said in the comments at Tobias' blog, the poem took my breath away. It is so very right and true for the occasion that I can only say a great "Amen! So may it be!"

Wise Words From Martin Luther King

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, Sweden, December 11, 1964.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Martin Luther King, Jr., "Strength To Love", 1963.

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

Martin Luther King, Jr., "Strength to Love", 1963.

MLK was a prophet, indeed - a man for all seasons.

More On The Missing Prayer

From Aaron Barnhart at TVBarn blog at the Kansas City Star:

As I see it, the Obama campaign has three options when the outcry (which has already started) comes to a boil later today:

1. Claim it was a technical glitch, jumping on the Times blog item. This would not only be a cowardly route, but it would be quickly disproven by one of several possibly gay executives at HBO or a viewer who could point out that the show began precisely and glitch-free at 2:30 p.m. ET.

UPDATE: Option 1 is off the table. An HBO spokesperson told TVB, "The PIC (Presidential Inaugural Committee)made the decision to put Rev. Robinson's invocation in the pre-show."

2. Come clean and admit that they never intended for Robinson to be seen on national TV. Which would mean admitting that Obama cooked up an extremely cynical ploy to pacify gays -- and straights like me who support gay marriage -- with a press release. Well, it failed. Perhaps Team Obama will claim it had no idea Robinson would not be seen giving the invocation. But then what does that say of Team Obama's vaunted preparation, planning, and chesslike working of all the angles?

3. Admit they screwed up and should've included Robinson on camera. If HBO had -- for some reason -- objected to having a gay bishop welcome all of America to "We Are One," then the invocation could have been pushed until after the entry of the presidential entourage. Well, it would not be the first time Team Obama had underestimated a controversial clergyman ... or the second. (How many presidents have gotten into hot water over their ministers three times before they even took the oath of office??)(

Whatever excuse the Obama people choose, exactly zero Americans saw Bishop Robinson on TV welcoming America to a day celebrating a president who is supposedly, to quote Colin Powell, a transformational figure.

And 150 million people will see Rick Warren do the same thing on Tuesday.

Some transformation.

Wounded Bird says that's about right.

H/T to the Episcopal Café.

Bishop Gene's Prayer - The Video

Mike in Texas posted a video of Bishop Gene's prayer.

From HBO:

"The producer of the concert has said that the Presidential Inaugural Committee made the decision to keep the invocation as part of the pre-show."

To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

On a lighter note:

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.

2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice!

3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.

4. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks . Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.

5. In the memo field of all your checks, write 'For Marijuana'

6. Skip down the hall rather than walk and see how many looks you get.

7. Order a diet water whenever you go out to eat.

8. Specify that your drive-through order is 'To go'.

9. Sing along at the opera.

10. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you have a headache.

11. When the money comes out the ATM, scream 'I won! I won!'

12. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling 'Run for your lives! They're loose!'

And The final way to keep a healthy level Of insanity

13. Tell your children over dinner, 'Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go.'

Send This E-mail To Someone To Make Them Smile.

It's called...THERAPY

I'm not sending it in an email. I'm posting it.

Blame it on Doug.

Comment Moderation Is Turned On

I'm sorry to do this, but I'm getting bombed with anonymous trolls and Jenny. For now, until the pests go away, I have turned on comment moderation. I'm sorry to use controls, since I like to keep access to the blog as free as possible, but until the annoying commenters go away, I'm afraid this is how it will be.

Of Course, The Haters Were There

From the Huffington Post:

Appearing at the primary public entrance to the pre-Inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial, representatives from a group calling itself "Brother Ruben and the Official Street Preachers" protested openly-gay Episcopal Gene Robinson's participation in the event.

With a diverse and otherwise joyous crowd of adults and children of all ages streaming by, the three protest participants shouted about hate, hell and "homo-sex" - using a megaphone to assert that "homosexuals are eternally damned" and "Jesus doesn't love homosexuals."

Read the rest of the post and check out Brother Ruben's website. I won't link to it, but there's a link in the HP piece.

Bishop Gene Robinson's Prayer

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

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.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

From the Episcopal Café.

H/T to Ann.