Non-Believers of the World, Unite!

I left the room while Rick Warren was making his blatantly sectarian plea for Jesus to swoop down from heaven and cradle the faithful in attendance, but was otherwise mostly riveted to the screen during this morning's inauguration. Not only was I able to watch as Bush and Cheney seemed to physically shrink before my eyes (Cheney's being confined to a wheelchair, his head barely clearing the lectern, seemed entirely appropriate), but I witnessed some deeply moving moments, such as when Joseph Lowery, one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, spoke in a weakened but passionate voice (and humorously paraphrased Big Bill Broonzy, in what must be an inaugural first) and when the new President noted that sixty years prior, his father might not have been served in a local restaurant.

I was impressed and touched by Obama's wise and brave choice to identify nonbelievers in his listing of the variety of faiths present in the country. As a rather outspoken nonbeliever myself (or atheist or anti-theist or whatever you like), it was pleasant to be included in the typical Christian-Jewish-Muslim-Hindu mix, and not feel as if I was somehow not welcome at the festivities. And yet it was a quotation from scripture that proved the other highlight of the inaugural speech for me - Obama's use and interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13:11.

"The time has come to set aside childish things" is not an exact quote from Corinthians - the King James version reads; "when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." And the words actually refer to humanity's transformation upon the return of Jesus Christ, in which people will see Christ for who he really is. Yet I found the quotation moving and absolutely essential. I'm sure I'm not alone in finding many of my compatriots to be childish and petulant, to be dismayed by willful ignorance and bratty self-entitlement, and to wish our leaders and citizens worked to understand the fundamental root causes of societal problems rather than resort to slander or fear-mongering. As somebody who has wished for a more adult tone to emanate from Washington and across the country, I found the fact that our new president admonished the nation for childishness in his first 15 minutes in office to be both gutsy and necessary.

Let the pundits bicker over whether Obama and Justice Roberts bungled the oath of office or not (the wingnuts have seized on this already, even though they do seem to agree that it was actually Abraham Lincoln's Bible and not a Koran making an appearance this morning), and watch this space for what I'm sure will be my own impatience or unhappiness with the direction Obama chooses to take. For the moment, I'm able to take a deep breath and feel quite good about the individual many of us helped place inside the White House.