It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn’t fall out in church. The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.

That’s a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans – evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at certain turning points in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives their beliefs and their values.

And that is why that, if we truly hope to speak to people where they’re at – to communicate our hopes and values in a way that’s relevant to their own – then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome – others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

In other words, if we don’t reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway.

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms.

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President Barack Obama’s economic team is pushing to complete a bank-rescue plan that can be twinned with the $825 billion stimulus package being negotiated with Congress to alleviate the rapidly deepening financial crisis.

While full details of the rescue haven’t been settled yet, people familiar with the deliberations said the package is likely to include a $50 billion-plus program to stem foreclosures, fresh injections of capital into the banks and steps to deal with toxic assets clogging lenders’ balance sheets.

Officials “feel like they need to move quickly to provide some sense of calmness and assurance to the market that the government isn’t going to let this problem get out of hand,” said John Douglas, a partner at the Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker law firm and a former general counsel at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

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A terrible question stalks our land, even at this moment of promise and hope: Is there any principle left by which the United States can transcend the present bitterness and divisions over religion in public life and live up to the promise of the American experiment? Race was the older and, many thought, deeper of America’s problems, but today’s celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as well as Barack Obama’s election shows how far we have come. Religion in public life is the next challenge.

James Madison called America’s original settlement of this contentious issue the “true remedy,” and for a long time it was certainly the most nearly perfect solution the world has seen.

Today, however, controversies over religion in public life have become the holy war front of the wider culture wars, and the American settlement is going awry. Whether it’s the posting of the Ten Commandments in public places, faith-draped monuments to our war dead or even a government-church partnership ”” as with the faith-based initiatives ”” controversy invariably rears its head at the intersection of religion and public life.

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Less than half the money dedicated to highways, school construction and other infrastructure projects in a massive economic stimulus package unveiled by House Democrats is likely to be spent within the next two years, according to congressional budget analysts, meaning most of the spending would come too late to lift the nation out of recession.

A report by the Congressional Budget Office found that only about $136 billion of the $355 billion that House leaders want to allocate to infrastructure and other so-called discretionary programs would be spent by Oct. 1, 2010. The rest would come in future years, long after the CBO and other economists predict the recession will have ended.

The report does not analyze the entire $825 billion package assembled by House leaders and aides to President Obama. Parts of the legislation are scheduled to be considered today in the House Appropriations Committee. Other portions of the proposal — including $275 billion in tax cuts and nearly $200 billion for jobless benefits, health care for the poor and other entitlement programs — are expected to pour cash into the nation’s faltering economy much more quickly.

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Most clearly, yesterday’s activities confirmed that Obama’s presidency will mark a sharp break from that of George W. Bush. The new president did not hesitate to highlight their differences. Obama spoke of a change of course in the Iraq war and of the “false choice between our safety and our ideals.” Those last words were aimed at the previous administration’s positions on civil liberties and harsh interrogation techniques. Most striking, given Bush’s unpopularity abroad, was Obama’s declaration to a world watching intently and eagerly that “we are ready to lead again.”

Still, perhaps mindful that during his campaign he faced doubts about his readiness to lead in a time of war, Obama was careful to balance his pledge to use diplomacy and cooperation in dealing with the rest of the world with steely words of resolve. To those out to harm the country, he said: “Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”

The confluence of events and Obama’s politics suggest that his presidency could bring a more momentous shift — from an era of conservative governance to one in which Washington assumes a more central role in the life of the country.

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He’s not only the first black president, but the good dad he wishes he’d had. She’s not just the first black first lady, but the good mom her good parents raised her to be. Just being themselves, the Obamas ”” a stable and mutually respectful couple, traditionally bourgeois in all the important ways ”” may inspire a more critical healing process than the ongoing one between American blacks and whites: namely, bridging the 45-year-old rift between black men and black women.

It is a great irony of American history that the passage of the longest-overdue social legislation ever written ”” the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act ”” coincided with the collapse in the general culture of the very institutions ”” religion and marriage ”” that sustained black dignity and self-respect throughout centuries of slavery and entrenched racism.

America’s resilient majority-white society was rocked, but not completely rolled, by the sexual revolution that erupted at the end of the civil rights era. But the social pillars of a psychologically fragile black community were toppled in that anti-establishment earthquake.

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On a morning of countless firsts in U.S. history, add this: Barack Obama’s inaugural speech is the first time a president has ever explicitly acknowledged not only “Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus” but non-believers as well.

“This inclusiveness is a signature moment in American inaugural history,” says David Domke, professor of communications at the University of Washington in Seattle, who has analyzed religious language in seven decades of inaugural and State of the Union addresses.

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The Inauguration of Barack Obama this week has been hailed by Church leaders in the UK.

The Church of England’s Committee for Minority Anglican Concerns hailed his election as a ”˜truly redemptive moment’ for the USA.

The group’s chair, the Rev Rose Hudson Wilkin, said: “The election last November of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the USA, culminating in his inauguration this week, is a most momentous occasion.

“His election was a truly redemptive moment and one of pride and aspiration for many people….”

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“Through you, may God bless America in a way that we are a blessing to the whole world,” one of the first speakers, Pastor Joel Hunter, told Obama.

Bishop T.D. Jakes, a senior pastor from Houston, used Scripture to offer the incoming president four lessons for his administration. “In time of crisis, good men must stand up,” Jakes said. “God always sends the best men into the worst times.” He also told the worshipers, “This is not a time for politeness or correctness; this is a time for people to confront issues and bring about change. . . . You cannot enjoy the light without enduring the heat.”

Looking directly at Obama, Jakes said, “The problems are mighty and the solutions are not simple, and everywhere you turn there will be a critic waiting to attack every decision that you make. But you are all fired up, sir, and you are ready to go. And this nation goes with you. God goes with you.”

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In his inaugural invocation Tuesday, evangelical Pastor Rick Warren delivered a message of unity that pleased some of his most vocal critics in the gay and lesbian community.

Yet even as the founder of Orange County’s Saddleback Church appeared to mollify those who have fought with him over gay marriage, he raised other eyebrows by invoking Jesus’ name and concluding with the Lord’s Prayer — both distinctly Christian practices on a day that has typically been characterized by more general expressions of “civil religion.”

“I don’t think he acquitted himself very well,” said Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Columbia University who considers Warren a friend. “To lead the nation in saying the Lord’s Prayer, which is so particularly Christian, was a mistake.”

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Barack Hussein Obama took the oath of office today as the nation’s 44th president — and the nation’s first black chief executive — and told Americans shaken by economic despair and war that shared sacrifice would be required to draw the nation back to prosperity and peace.

“Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed,” Obama declared in a ringing inaugural address. “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America.”

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(UCC News) I have a confession to make. A couple of years ago after being invited year after year to preach somewhere on the Sunday before the Martin Luther King Holiday, I promised myself that I was going to stop accepting invitations to preach on anywhere on the MLK holiday weekend. I understand the importance of this observance, but I felt that it was hard to not to come off as predictable or to strike just the right tone or to really inspire and celebrate. Every time I spoke on this particular Sunday, I ended up feeling pretty inadequate, and I told myself quite frankly who needs that? After all, my role as Associate General Minister is primarily an administrative role. I was not called to this position because of my great preaching abilities.Hardly! I was called to be an administrator and that is the place and role that I am most comfortable with. So, could someone PLEASE explain to me how I ended up in a pulpit again on the Sunday before the MLK Holiday and not just any MLK holiday, but THE one that is the day before this country inaugurates the first African-American President! Talk about a loaded Sunday. I agreed to be here long ago, before anyone knew what the historical importance of his particular Sunday would be. And so the last couple of weeks, I have been asking myself what I could possibly say this morning that might be the least bit original and even slightly inspiring or that would do justice to the occasion. The symbolic nature of what awaits us this week is certainly powerful enough without words from me.
But I also realized that even though anything I say won’t add or hopefully detract from the power of the of week, it may be important for “regular folks” like all of us to take some time to think about and take in the meaning of this week in a way that is more reflective than the sound bites, pictures and political analysis that we’re going to experience over the next several days. I acknowledge that I don’t know what everyone’s political perspective is, and that really isn’t the point here this morning because we will all share this moment in time. And so, I invite you to bear with me and listen in on some of what I have been thinking about the days ahead and what it’s like for me to stand between memory and hope.

Given the context, I’ve been thinking a lot about memory and memories and realizing that memory is a strange thing. I was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1953, a year before the Brown vs., the Board of Education decision that said that separate educational facilities for blacks and whites were inherently unequal. So I never experienced the schools in a time where separate but equal was legal. I never lived in places where I even saw signs that said colored only or whites only. I’ve never been denied the right to vote as an African American or as a woman; I never had to literally sit in the back of the bus and I have never been denied service in a restaurant or hotel because I am African American. Yes, like many African Americans or maybe most, I have experienced the more subtle forms of racism and discrimination, but I never experienced the overt and horrendous indignities that are part of our nations’ history with African Americans. But curiously, even though I didn’t personally live through these experiences, they are in many ways part of who I am. My grandparents lived in Mississippi and Oklahoma and they and my parents did experience many horrendous indignities. Even though you and I were not personally there, we know about the Little Rock Nine and how they bravely integrated Central High School despite the physical danger and threats to keep them out. Many of us remember seeing Bull Conner and hoses and dogs on our TV sets and we remember the pledges of many that south would never be integrated. Even though we may not have personally experienced or participated in anything even remotely like the harshest and ugliest things we know that are part of the history of African Americans in this country, it is part of our collective history, our national memory if you will and just as I have been shaped by those experiences and memories, my guess is that in some ways you have as well. Memories are powerful, they live on and in some ways we are grateful for that. We want to hold on our memories”¦at least the good ones. We want to remember precious times past with loved ones who are now gone, we want to hold on to those memories of our child’s first birthday or of their first step or of their graduation from kindergarten or high school, we want to hold on to the memory of that first big promotion or that first kiss. While our memories don’t make us who we are, our memories are in some way the collective embodiment of who we are and are reflective of our personal journey and stories.

But we don’t quite know what to do with the collective painful and difficult memories do we? We generally want to just get beyond them, forget them, sweep them under the rug, and get over it. And I totally get that. Who wants to hang on to things that hurt? Who really wants to
live in the past? So the thing about memories,
especially the difficult ones is to find the right venue for them, too ask the right questions about them, to be conscious of how they have shaped us, in good ways and perhaps not so good ways and to know when they are helping us or when they are holding us back. And perhaps at some point maybe we get to a place where those painful memories don’t have quite the same power and they are more informative than they are impactful. The pain of Martin Luther King’s death has receded some, but MLK Day is at least in part about memory. It’s about remembering the man, remembering his work, remembering not only his dream but the dream of so many others as well.
Dreams of freedom from oppression, dreams of equal treatment of all people regardless of the color of ones skin, dreams that the American Dream might be attainable for all, and dreams that we might indeed judge either other by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin. Remembering the legacy of Martin Luther King is important , and I don’t think this memory is one we walk away from. But I also hope that Martin Luther King Day is about not only remembering the dream, but recommitting ourselves to help that dream live in tangible ways. I confess that one reason that I have never really felt totally comfortable celebrating Martin Luther King Day is because it has felt like we recite the I Have a Dream speech one day and then go about business as usual the next. It has always seemed too easy, too automatic. I am not suggesting that we all have to live every day totally consumed by all that is wrong with the world, by all the injustices that have yet to be righted, by what we have not yet achieved. But I wonder especially on MLK Day if I am doing all that I can to make the world a better place. I sometimes wonder what my little corner of the world be like if I more fully lived the commitment that Martin Luther King had to justice, not just for African Americans, but for all people. How much would I have to redefine my priorities, what difference would a renewed commitment make? In some ways, only remembering Martin Luther King is a hallow honor. I think that doing something to help further his dream is what the day calls for. A day of service as the President Elect has called for? Maybe that’s it, but something that indeed engages us actively in keeping the dream alive.

And so tomorrow, we will honor Martin Luther King Jr; looking back on his life. And then on Tuesday, we will look forward to the future and inaugurate the first African-American President in our history; Martin Luther King, representing memory of the civil rights struggle and Barack Obama embodying the dream. Even many who didn’t vote for Barack Obama agree that he is a very compelling figure. He has been able to galvanize millions to hope and dream and imagine in ways that we have not seen in this country for many years. All of that is so important, but the sense in the country that we are embarking on something new, the sense of hope that he as nurtured in this country, the sense of pride that we are moving beyond something is as much about the past as it is about the future, it’s
as much about memory as it is about hope. We
look back at slavery, at the civil rights struggle, at the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
and we feel that just maybe we are poised for something new. But the reason our hope is so great is because our memories are still so clear.

I have no illusions, I assume that as an African American you expect to hear something like this from me this morning. But this week and this moment is not just about us as African Americans, it is about all Americans and I suggest that it is as important for white Americans as it is for me. I can’t know completely how this feels for many of you, but I imagine that because of our collective history, you also feel like we are turning a page that you yearn for. Not that the whole book is finished by any means. On Wednesday morning, there will still be racial misunderstandings and prejudice and all the problems that exist today, but there will have been a shift, an important change, a statement being made about who you are and who we are as a country that moves us further down the road in a
new way. We hope for new ways of being one
nation under God, we hope for new ways of valuing each person for who they are and the gifts that God has given them. I imagine that many of my Euro American sisters and brothers like you, also feel a renewed sense of pride in who we are as Americans.

As we watch and participate in the events of the next several days I hope we will all remember that Martin Luther King Day and the inauguration of a new President is not just about politics and that’s why it’s so appropriate for persons in pulpits across this country to be reflecting on what this time means to so many. Remember, Martin Luther King Junior was a pastor, the role of the church and of Christians in the civil rights movement can’t be overlooked or forgotten.
The concerns that Martin Luther King was addressing back in the 60s were not just issues of society and culture, they were issues of justice. The same is true for many of the challenges that face this new administration. The call to respect and care for each other as sisters and brothers isn’t just a political or sociological statement. Remember the words of Jesus, “If you love me, feed my sheep.” The greatest commandment is to love the Lord God with all our hearts and minds, but the second one is like it, to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Concerns about racial equality, and poverty and homelessness and war and health care and the marginalization of the voiceless and powerless are moral issues, they are issues that people of faith must be engaged in. If this exciting moment in time is going to be anything other than a short lived, feel good moment, then all of us must be partners in bringing about the change we seek. And that includes those of us who are people of faith as well, we don’t have the luxury of sitting in church on Sundays and not taking our faith with us on Mondays. Our faith is like the touch tone or the chorus in a melody, it’s an essential part of our lives; not compartmentalized on Sundays only. All of us must be engaged in working together for the common good, all of us must remember that another world is possible, but it is possible only if we commit ourselves to making dreams live beyond one day, one week, one month or the first 100 days. There are people hurting and they need systemic change and in the United Church of Christ, we believe that our faith calls us out from Sunday into the challenges of everyday life.

Despite all of the excitement and anticipation of something new, we have to remember that Barack Obama is not the second coming, he is a man, and as other Presidents, he is fallible, he will disappoint us at times and none of us will agree with all of his decisions, actions and leadership. As the church, we must speak truth to power, regardless of who is in power, we can’t be seduced. There is that bumper sticker that says God is not Republican or a Democrat and that is true. Our role as the church and as Christians is to continue to raise our voices for more just systems, for eradication of poverty, for policies that don’t discriminate on the basis of race, gender, physical ability or sexual orientation, to encourage and support and pray for peace. And we are called to do this not because of a particular political perspective but because of our belief in a Stillspeaking God, who is a God of love and a God of justice.

You know when George called and asked me for a sermon title, I told him that I don’t really do sermon titles anymore because generally I end up trying to write a sermon to fit a sermon title that I gave rather than finding a title for a sermon I’ve written. He didn’t press me then but I later for some reason I sent him a title and you have heard me refer to it a couple of times, “Between Memory and Hope.” Sometimes I get a bit obsessive about the exact meaning of a word and so late last night, I went to dictionary.com and looked up the word “between.” It’s a common word, we use it all the time and so we are clear about its’ meaning aren’t we? The word between means the space separating two points or objects. like between Phoenix and Cleveland or the difference
between minus 9 degrees and 65 degrees. But
there was also a paragraph about the usage of the word between. That paragraph said that between should be used when there is a space between two entities. Between is used when the entities are considered as distinct. And that reminded me of why I don’t give sermon titles. There is no “between” memory and hope. I don’t think that there is a space between memory and hope. Our memories feed our hopes, our memories help define and shape our hopes; our hopes comes from experiencing what is and we to imagining what might be. Our real life experiences become our memories and often out of those memories we see another way, perhaps a better way and we hope for a new day. So yes, Martin Luther King, Junior and Barack Obama are two separate and distinct individuals separated in time and space.
But in some ways, the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., the work and dream of Martin Luther King helped nurture and support and feed and maybe even make possible the leadership of Barack Obama. In some very real ways, Barack Obama is able to be who he is because of Martin Luther King’s pursuit of a dream. And we are able to be who we are because we too have embraced that dream. Some of you may have seen or heard this as it was floating around the internet during the elections.

Rosa sat so Martin could march
Martin marched so Barack could run
Barack ran, so our children can fly.

Memory and hope”¦they meet this week, and we are grateful witness and participants.

–The Rev. Edith Guffey, associate General Minister, preached this sermon, “Between Memory and Hope” on Jan. 18, 2009, at Church of the Red Rocks UCC in Sedona, Arizona.

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That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land – a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met.

We’ll see.

It was Obama’s religious outreach director, Joshua Dubois, who first mentioned Warren as a choice for the inaugural invocation. Warren and Obama spoke and prayed together about it. When Warren had invited Obama to speak at a California conference two years ago for World AIDS Day, he was harshly criticized by evangelical Christians because of Obama’s position on abortion rights. During last year’s campaign, when Warren conducted his compassion forum at Saddleback, he was criticized by the right for giving Obama that platform. Although both have taken heat from their constituencies for this decision, Obama felt closer to him than to any other minister. After the firestorm erupted, Obama reportedly called Warren and told him that he loved him and that Warren had his full support. David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama, also gave the choice his blessing.

And Obama’s move is already yielding results: Warren has taken down the anti-gay material from his Web site and has essentially come out in favor of civil unions. Obama has pledged to rescind the unpopular “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule imposed on gays in the military. Bishop Robinson, who told me that Warren’s view of “people like me and my relationships is pretty horrific,” nonetheless was invited to give the invocation at Sunday’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial and has asked to meet with Warren. He acknowledged that Obama had included “all voices” in the inauguration and added, “No one had a bigger tent than Jesus.”

In the end, it seems that Obama’s choice was brilliant — good for gays, good for the country and good for him. Who knows? Perhaps in a few years, Pastor Rick Warren will have another epiphany . . . and may eventually be officiating at same-sex wedding ceremonies.

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Even for those who voted against him, that outcome presents indisputable evidence of how thoroughly the American people have rejected bigotry since Dr. King issued that defining challenge a mere 24 days after the second birthday of our first black president.

Additional public judgments of Mr. Obama will be made after he moves beyond today’s pomp, circumstance and jubilation and into the nitty gritty of pressing issues, both domestic and foreign.

But as a nation, we’re clearly much less inclined than we once were to judge each other by the color of our skin. And despite the momentous significance of his election, Mr. Obama should not simply be viewed as a black president ”” or as a Democratic president. He should be viewed as all Americans’ president.

And while all Americans should wish him success in the daunting job he begins today, we also can share in the joy of knowing how remarkably far we’ve come in his lifetime.

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The global challenges are just as daunting, beginning with U.S. forces deployed in two wars and extending to fighting in Gaza; nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea; tension between India and Pakistan; suffering in Darfur, Burma, Congo and Zimbabwe. If anything, the war in Iraq, the issue that helped propel Mr. Obama to his nomination, is among the easier items on his international to-do list.

But Mr. Obama sets out with some powerful advantages, and not only of temperament and ability. He has assembled, already, a team rich in experience and pragmatic competence. He is graced with a country that is eager, almost desperate, for him to succeed. In part thanks to the somber and unflappable tone he has sounded since the election, Americans are both hugely optimistic about the Obama presidency, polls show, and realistic about the time he will need to produce results. His popularity abroad creates new opportunities for U.S. leadership.

More than a few grains of salt are called for here. Mr. Obama is a man of great promise but relatively little experience. The hopefulness of recent inauguration days soon gave way to cynicism and disappointment. Each new administration promises to reject the slash-and-burn politics of the previous crowd, only to get caught up in more of the same, or worse. Too often, the way presidents pledged to govern as candidates bears little resemblance to the way they operate once in office. And history plays its own tricks: The challenges a president ends up wrestling with are rarely foreseen on Inauguration Day.

Yet, like most Americans, we can’t help feeling something particularly special about this Inauguration Day. Like most Americans, we will be rooting for Mr. Obama to succeed.

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Obama’s challenge will be to translate the social repair that has occurred over the past decade into political and governing repair. Part of that will be done with his inaugural address today. Look for him to emphasize the themes of responsibility, cohesion and unity. Look for him to reject the culture, which lingered in the financial world, of anything goes.

Part of that will be done with his governing style. Obama aims to realize the end-of-ideology politics that Daniel Bell and others glimpsed in the early 1960s. He sees himself as a pragmatist, an empiricist. Politics is not personal with him. He does not turn political disagreements into a status contest between one kind of person and another. He is convinced that most Americans practice their politics between the 40-yard lines.

Part will be accomplished with his aggressive outreach efforts. Already he has cooperated with Republicans. He has rejected the counsel of the old liberal warriors who want retribution and insularity.

But the real test will come in the realm of policy. The next few months will be occupied with the stimulus package. And anybody who is not terrified by the prospect of spending $800 billion hastily has not spent enough time studying the difference between economic textbooks and the way government actually operates.

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She deserves so much credit, especially for the encouragement she gave him day by day in Hawaii to work hard in school and get an education–KSH

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For any incoming president, an inaugural address is a real challenge. For Barack Obama, it may be a stiffer challenge than for most of his predecessors.

Obama is already known to be capable of giving a great speech. The nation discovered that when it discovered him, as he delivered his memorable address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He has set the bar high. Great expectations only add to his burden. Anything less than a stirring speech Tuesday will be a disappointment.

Obama’s speech is expected to run about 15-20 minutes, which is on the short side compared to most inaugural addresses. The dominant theme will be “responsibility.”

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Of course over here in America at present in terms of the news it is all-inauguration-all-the-time right now. Of all the things I have heard and seen nothing has touched me more than the reaction of 100 year old Sylvester Williams of New Orleans to what today means to him. Maybe it is because he once picked cotton, maybe it is because he has lived a whole century, but whatever it is exactly, he speaks from the heart. To see and hear him for yourself, watch this NBC piece–KSH.

It is that fundamental belief — it is that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sisters’ keeper — that makes this country work.

It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family: “E pluribus unum,” out of many, one.

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.

Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America.

There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.

—Barack Obama in the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convnetion

So the scramble is on. The big splash water park ”” complete with a gym and “quality meeting space” ”” might sound like a waste of $22 million, but it would provide a nice stimulus for the people of Gastonia, N.C. The travel industry wants a $10 million loan to promote the U.S. as a destination, a tougher job these days. To the American Apparel & Footwear Association, this crisis only highlights the need to eliminate import tariffs on shoes. “Building self-esteem is critical,” explains Matt Rubel, CEO of the parent company of Payless, “and not having a new pair of shoes ”” you know, having a pair that’s tattered and doesn’t fit ”” that does not create good self-esteem.”

Let’s face it: fiscal stimulus is a frustratingly inexact science. Nobody knows precisely what it will do in the short term, and in the long term, it isn’t that different from any other government spending, except that the point of the spending can be the spending itself. As always, there will be winners and losers; it’s impossible to stimulate everyone equally. In two years, if the recession is over, skeptics will claim it would have ended regardless of the stimulus. If it lingers, proponents will credit the stimulus for preventing a drearier outcome. As with the first round of the financial bailout, its most important short-term effect will probably be psychological, calming markets by sending a message of government engagement.

It will be an expensive message, and we’ll be paying for it for a long time. Obama can’t control how markets or employers react, but he can use the opportunity to start keeping promises and start moving the country away from dirty energy, crumbling infrastructure and economic inequality. If he trades those goals for size and speed, he’ll blow a unique chance to chart a new direction. He doesn’t need to beg Congress to spend; that’s like begging Cookie Monster to eat. He needs to take a stand: No money without reform. That won’t just rebuild consumer confidence; it will rebuild citizen confidence too. As the shoe guy said, at a time like this, self-esteem is critical.

Read it carefully and read it all.

This blend of pragmatism and realism reminds me in the American context of Eisenhower more than any other recent president. Obama has the unerring instincts of a conciliator and a moderate Tory. But he has the rhetorical skills of a Kennedy or a Churchill. That’s a potent combination.

It may be, of course, that the relief at the end of the Bush era is colouring our hopes. It may also be that events conspire to derail the man, or that the habits of the past two decades in Washington will return with a vengeance and do to Obama what was done to Clinton, another centrist Democrat who came to office on a tide of goodwill. But I don’t think that, given the immense crises we all face, it is unreasonable to hope for more.

There is something about Obama’s willingness to give others credit, to approach so many issues with such dispassionate pragmatism, and to shift by symbols and speeches the mood and tenor of an entire country that gives one a modest form of optimism. Even now, as the outlook seems so dark, and as the inheritance seems so insuperable, three words linger in the mind.

Yes, he can.

Read it all.