January 20, 2017

In his last remarks as outgoing President, President Barack Obama, speaking to his long time staff, spoke about the contributions of all his team as those who “gave hope to America” and “worked together to make America a better place to be”.  What he described as modest goals are in fact what mobilized President Obama, Michelle Obama and all those who worked so hard on behalf of our 44^th President.  President Obama described a gradual change across America which has occurred under his leadership as the beginning of a way to “make things better for all Americans”.

Outgoing President Obama paused in the speech to describe briefly the change in Washington, DC, which is now beginning today with President Donald Trump.  He first described it “as a pit stop on the way in the progress in our nation”, then he changed his words and said, “No this is just a comma” in our process toward becoming a better nation in the world.

I thought about these two phrases for a time, “pit stop” and “comma”.  I would myself have chosen “parentheses”.  A parentheses separates the main sentence of subject and verb from an off to the side informational comment.  This is how I would describe Trump’s presidency, “a parenthesis in the main plot of the whole sentence”.

“A Parenthesis” and whatever Trump may fill in this tiny gap of time is no more significant to the main sentence of this nation than an ant crawling upon a man’s back is significant to the man.  For a time it may seem to be important, even significant, but after a little while the man will take his fore finger and flick the ant off his back to stop all the irritation of the thing and its significance, if any, will be quickly over.

President Barak Obama provided the subject, the verb and the object of this sentence of our nation in our historical time.  Donald T is the ant crawling on the back of America.  With a flick of the finger he will be discarded as quickly as he was picked up.  His irrelevance to this sentence of the United States of America will soon be described in this way, “Damn ant, how did you get on my back anyway?”  He will be seen as the irritating nuisance which is out of place in this great nation, with no more place in the lineage of our greatest presidents than Grover Cleveland or Andrew Johnson.  Necessary perhaps for their time, but no more relevant to the greatness of this nation than a scratch behind the ear as we pause to think about what we should be doing with our remaining time in this world.

Donald Trump is an angry little man with angry little people puffed up by the trappings of power, pomp and circumstance.  Of the real act of governance he has not a clue, nor of the nuance of diplomacy among nations, nor of the real power found in service to all our fellow humanity by bringing hope to the many instead of privileges to the few.  Of the few sentences I heard today excerpted on the radio I heard nothing of any consequence nor importance.  I missed the inaugural speech, as I had the more important task of going for the renewal of my driver’s license.

So let us celebrate the power of the parentheses, as it contains mischief, limits pride and shows the actual importance of the words contained in it as spoken today.  Trump and his words are a comma in the whole sentence, a parenthesis of a minor detail of minimal relevance, a pit stop on the great road race of life.  Let us not tarry here too long, but let us get on about the business of becoming the nation by which all other nations measure their democratic ideals.  Let us become this once again, when we delete the part of the sentence which starts today and ends in 4 years, in this long history of the United States of America!  This will not be because of Donald Trump, but rather because he taught us what we do not want to become….We reject his vision of a divided country.  We embrace today and every day the home of the free and the brave, the one nation under God, the United States of America!

The Voice of one Crying in the Wilderness, “Make straight in this desert a Highway for our God!” through Jesus Christ our Lord, “Amen!”