Prayer For President Barack Obama

For the President of the United States and all in Civil Authority

O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world: We commend this nation to thy merciful care, that, being guided by thy Providence, we may dwell secure in thy peace. Grant to the President of the United States and to all in authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do thy will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness, and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in thy fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer, p. 820)

UPDATE: Photo from the new website.

It's Real! It Happened! It's A New Day!

For the first time in a long time, I felt strong stirrings of patriotism. For the first time in a long time, I felt pride in the leadership of my country. I cried during the singing of "My Country Tis Of Thee". I stood proudly and sang the national anthem.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

"Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Martin Luther King - "I Have A Dream"

Hello, President Barack Obama!

Good-bye, Bush and gang.


Less than two hours left! Last night, Grandpère and I talked about what I post on my blog, and he became alarmed when he found out about some of what I've said. He said, "You know, what you say goes out to the world! The FBI will investigate you, and I could be in trouble, too." You know, guilt by association. I told him, "Hey! Tomorrow, I'm out of the woods. Bush missed his chance, and Obama won't begin his presidency by investigating an old lady."

A "Simple Mistake"

From Marc Amber at The Atlaantic:

Barack Obama's inaugural committee is taking for the blame for a scheduling miscue that left gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson's prayer out of HBO's live broadcast of yesterday's inaugural megaconcert.
....

An inaugural committee aide calls it a "simple mistake."
....

Tomorrow, before an audience of 2 million people on the Mall, the inaugural committee will broadcast an edited version of the program on Jumboscreens that includes his prayer.

It was, the aide says, "[a]n honest, unfortunate mistake in executing the program that for which we take responsibility."

The team has apologized to Robinson.

All right, then. The outcry must have been great.

Is there a lesson here on pushback, once Obama takes office? We'll also need to let the Congress know that, although Obama is popular, the Congress is held in low esteem, and they'd best not put up roadblocks to change.

Thanks to Dennis for sending the link.

UPDATE: It's refreshing to see the inaugural committee take responsibility. A new day has dawned, indeed.

UPDATE 2: Go read Bishop Gene's account at his blog of his amazing Monday.

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."