A Profound Prayer Until…Wrong Turn!
By Pat Racimora on January 22, 2009 at 12:55 AM in Current Affairs
I tuned into the inauguration extravaganza while driving to the doctor’s. My mind was wandering as it droned on. Then came the Rev. Joseph Lowery. I sat straight up in my seat. His powerfully full voice, despite his advanced age, was putting forth an impassioned melody. (Try to hear a fired-up Southern Baptist preacher in your head as you read.)
And while we have sown the seeds of greed — the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.
Yes! No matter what we think of the President, we must not turn on each other. Music!
And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.
Yes! Yes! We need much more of that in this world. More!
With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations 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.
Oh yes! Peace and justice. This guy is so good!
For believers, the prayer was a perfect call to be the best we can be. I was smiling. It was one of the rare times during this campaign that I was feeling truly inspired.
Then came THIS…
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around … when yellow will be mellow … when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right.
Huh? What the hell is this now? My crest fell flat.
OK, it rhymes. But I thought we just took a big step forward regarding “black.” Why should “yellow” be mellow? Aren’t “browns” already sticking around? And–“When “white” will embrace what is right?” Well wait just a damned minute here. Didn’t millions of whites just do right by what the old Reverend would have wanted to witness before his time is up? Didn’t he just say that we should “ turn to each other and not on each other” and ask for “tolerance, not intolerance.”
Michelle Malkin , who I usually don’t agree with, dubbed the benediction as race-baiting. As she put it, “Who wrote that line? Jeremiah Wright? And what would Obama’s grandparents and mother have to say?”
A friend gave an alternate view, suggesting that many preachers like Lowry use rhymes to make their speech more melodic and that any other meaning is probably secondary to the nature of the language pattern.
What do you think? Are we in for continued separatism? Or is the preacher just a bad poet?
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