We have life, we have families, we have work, and we have the need for work.
We have belief, even when our beliefs conflict.
And somehow we have to figure out again how to meld individual effort with communal needs. Our very future as a nation depends upon it.
My hunch is that, on Tuesday, our new President will talk about bridging these divides, so that we might rebuild our confidence, as well as our country, together.
You are all my friends — Republicans, Democrats, religious believers and non-believers alike. I hope you'll read the article I've cited above, and ponder the all-too-human differences it begins to describe. (And for my fellow heathens, I hope you recognize that the church is where many deep and fundamental questions are addressed for many people.
As we pass political leadership from one generation to the next, let us hope we all may prosper, and grow.
My predecessor as Creative Loafing editor, the always thoughtful Jim Harper, sent friends a link to this eloquent piece of journalism from the New York Times. (The photo above, by Times photographer Stephen Crowley, accompanied the original story.) Here is Jim's own equally eloquent introduction:
An Inaugural Prayer
Some of you don't understand why I've returned to caring about what happens in the Christian church. Others wonder why I ever left.
The article above, about two historic Methodist churches on the same block of Capitol Hill, captures so much about the social divides, the racial divides, and the evolutionary ethical divides, that have separated us for too long as members of the same American community.
Regardless of your politics — and I have to admit, as a Democrat, I maintain an attraction to many Republican ideals, not the least of which is that individual effort should be encouraged and rewarded — I hope you will agree that Barack Obama's inauguration calls us in these difficult times to think about what we have in common:
