Bishop Gene Robinson is keeping a blog about his experience at the inauguration, where he will give the invocation at the kickoff concert at the Lincoln Memorial this afternoon at 2:30.
Arriving at National Airport yesterday was like coming into a recently-stirred-up anthill. But there were no angry, impatient voices (okay, I did hear one!), no one in a bad humor. Faces filled with anticipation and sheer joy at being here. Was it my imagination, or were all the African-Americans walking just a little bit taller? I think so. I hope so. And so was everyone else.
I am, to say the least, overwhelmed by the possibilities of this day. Not just offering a prayer for the nation and the new president, but helping to kick off the beginning of a new era of hope in this nation. The hope that then-candidate Barack Obama talked about — and which was often decried by others as hopelessly (literally) labeled as unrealistic and maudlin — is about to become reality. The future won’t be perfect, of course, and the new president won’t be either. But what a new beginning!
I am also overwhelmed and humbled by the task ahead of me. This prayer has weighed on my heart for several weeks now. My words will be the first heard by the crowds who will have been standing, waiting, for six hours to witness this event. I figure they’ll be ready to listen, and grateful that the event has finally begun, or maybe they’ll start chanting “Springsteen” or “Bono” and wishing the clergy guy would just get out of the way. Either way, I will attempt to get the crowd to pause for a moment before the fun begins, and join me in a prayer that we can all pray together.