A Speech For the Ages

It was a speech for the ages, one that will be remembered and parts replayed for generations   Brief but powerful, it clarified the progress we could make as we head deeper into this new century.  I only got to hear the speech, having it surreptitiously on the radio, in a work environment that had no interest in either the holiday or the inauguration.

I'm sure many of my conservative colleagues, for those who bothered to hear it, or hear/read the interpretation of it through right wing media, thought it was a dangerous declaration of liberal values.  And, yes, in some ways it was the kind of progressive rhetoric I had long waited to hear.  But the speech was much more than that.  It was also probably the most religious and profoundly Christian Presidential address I had ever heard.

I'm not talking about the deliberate mention of God.  Yes, that was in there, but that's cheap and easy to do. I'm talking about it's celebration of human progress, the dignity of the individual and the collective support of the community, about the faith that, over time, that we can make life better.

We hit on these themes in our Sunday School class last week, about "living between the trees".  We don't wait passively for God and Jesus to come back and smite everybody we don't like.  We work actively to make things better here.  The Kingdom of heaven is all about us.  It is up to us to recognize it, and build a better world to let it shine through.  Even though it takes time to build that, generations, the path to it is what's important.

Quotes from the speech:

 "And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice – not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice."

"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth."

"Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm."

"We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years, and forty years, and four hundred years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall."

The speech mentions over and over again, our powers and responsibilities as individuals and as community.  This is not Ayn Rand's country.  This is not Karl Marx's country.  This is OUR country.

Blessed be the Kingdom of heaven.  All we have to do is recognize that it is there, and do everything we can to bring it about.