Remembering January 20, Inauguration Day of a New President
“The Rock cries out to us today,
You may stand upon me,
But do not hide your face.”— Maya Angelou, “On the Pulse of Morning.”
I have been to two presidential inaugurations. Both were in the last century. One time I was with my daughter, and once with my husband and friends. I remember festivities the weekend before the inaugurations, with Peter, Paul, and Mary singing in a tent on the mall. We go to a Blue Jean Bash with Bob Dylan and eat catfish and hush puppies. There is an air of excitement on inauguration day as crowds fill the mall. The music is uplifting. There is always a sacred reading, the national anthem, as well as the hopes of the new president.
There is a feeling of newness, a new beginning with all its possibilities of making changes to give opportunities to people of our country whose lives seem hopeless because of suppression or disease, as Maya Angelou reads her poem written for the day. “On the Pulse of Morning.”
We offer thanks for the opportunities we know we have. We are empowered to make a difference in the lives of others. There is hope. We are there with every form of humanity, young babies crying, older adults who can barely stand looking for a place to sit. We are so close together in one melting pot that it is sometimes difficult to get our gloved hands out of our heavy coat pockets.
Only once did we try to go from the inauguration to our ticketed seats for the parade. I can only remember telling my teenage daughter, “We will never make it,” trying to move against a tsunami wave of people. She kept telling me, “We can do it. We can make it,” and finally, we did.
Most recently, we fear danger may be uninvited to the inauguration. We still fear for the lives of the new president, vice president, and members of Congress. We would never have believed this would be the scene for an inauguration in our country in our wildest dreams, but here we are.
What can we do?
We pray.
I know that prayers change the pray-er, and prayers are heard. Prayers are like some mystical force that goes out into the universe, which can bring healing to places unknown and known. We pray to send love and protection to our country and its new leaders. We pray for those whose only response has now become violence. We know something led them to that path. We pray to hear their story and tell them about love that casts out fear.
Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/
