Gene Robinson's Prayer at the Inaugural Opening Ceremony

An incredibly beautiful prayer from openly gay Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson at yesterday's opening ceremony for the Inauguration. A rather tough act to follow for Rick Warren, who delivers the invocation at the Inauguration proper today, and whose record on gays is, shall we say, questionable at best. (Regardless of his fence mending with the apparently easily snowed Melissa Etheridge.) In any event, politics aside, Bishop Robinson's prayer is a call for strength, tolerance, and wisdom, and it is a call that we could all do well to answer.

The text, below:

"O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic
“answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughter's childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN."

It's VS Its

Well, I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one who has occasional troubles with remembering the possessive versus contraction rules governing the use of an apostrophe and the word "It".

(For the record, "it's" is a contraction [which makes perfect sense!], while "its" is possessive [and does not make sense!]. Also, this is the exact opposite as it was explained to me by an English major and "professional" writer, so I feel somewhat vindicated in my confusion.... Unless this site is wrong and confused as well!)

Last Thoughts On 2008

Update: This was meant to be posted New Year's Eve, but apparently didn't make it out of the draft folder, which is unfortunate. In any event, a few days later, the sentiment remains the same.

Well, at long last, 2008 is wheezing it's last dreadful breaths. I touched a bit on 2008 in the post before my birthday, so I don't know that I feel any inclination to go back into any of that. Instead of recounting 2008 as an annotated list of best records, worst moments, and greatest blessings, I think that I will share a little ritual that a friend is engaging in this New Year's Eve.

Take two pieces of paper, and, on the first, write down a list of your mistakes of 2008 (Think you haven't made any? You have.); on the second piece of paper write out your goals for the coming year. The first piece of paper, this catalog of your mistakes and missteps, fold in half and cast into the ocean, a river, or a creek. Any body of water really; this is the act of releasing your errors and regrets, thus enabling you to move forward.

Now take the second piece of paper, the one that sets out what you hope to accomplish in the coming year, fold it in half, and set it alight. Let it burn to embers, and know that you have just ignited your goals, and created a metaphorical jumping off point for their accomplishment. You're free now to move into the New Year with a hand at your back, and without the hindrance of the past holding you back or bogging you down. January First may just be another date, another day on the calendar, but it is symbolic nonetheless. It can be the clean slate that so many of us want and need so badly; whatever you need to make the changes that you've been making excuses not to. Take it, run with it; it's a rare gift in a life full of debits.

Thus far, I can say that I am wholly satisfied with these last hours of 2008. I took the dog on a five mile hike into the mountains outside of Pasadena; following two and a half miles of switchbacks, and an eighteen hundred plus foot elevation gain, we ended at the ruins of a hotel that burned at the turn of the century. We looked out over the valley, a late afternoon marine layer settling in, and I thought about how wonderful it was to be alive, breathing and existing, regardless of how messy the transitory may become. This evening I spent with family; eating food, talking music, science, tv, and tech, and playing board games before we all watched the ball drop in NYC. If this last day of 2008 is any indication of the 2009 to come, I'm ready to welcome it and embrace what I have every intention of making into a wonderful year full of possibility and wonder.

That Smiths Reunion Business? Not So Much.

Well There you go. Per an article on NME.com yesterday, Johnny Marr officially squelched the latest round of Smiths reunion rumors.

Marr issued a statement to NME.COM saying that rumours floating around that the band were reuniting were "untrue". He declared: "The stories circulating about a Smiths reunion are, as usual, untrue."

So, again, there you go. It's unfortunate, but I tend to have mixed emotions about any reunion tour. Sometimes it's best to just leave things as they were, and if that means being sad that you were too young to have ever seen The Smiths play, well then, so be it. I don't doubt that they would have done a magnificent job, but you never know.

Anyway, Johnny is likely a little busy right now, what with Modest Mouse, The Cribs, lecturing at Uni in Manchester, and appearing in the latest (to be released) Harry Potter film.

OMG The Smiths May Be Reuniting!!!!

Amazing. Spectacular. Transcendent. The Smiths. Reunited. Soon???

There has been one band that has managed to not jump on the reunion bandwagon that got to rolling over the past several years, and it is The Smiths. Rumors have circulated recently that there was a very generous offer were they to stage a reunion at this year's Coachella festival, and it appears that those rumors may be closer to reality than previously believed.

I've had the opportunity to see Morrissey twice in the past ten years (good lord!), and he trotted out a few Smiths covers, but that was the closest that I believed that I would come to seeing the actual Smiths. The Smiths, dear Lord, The Smiths!!!

Time will tell, but hopes are high that reconciliation and hundreds of millions of dollars will bring The Smiths back onto the stage. The real question is whether or not Andy Joyce and Mickey Rourke will be involved, as they were considered merely session players, and proved themselves to be terribly litigious. Either way, with or without them, I will be there, and sixteen year old Dakin will be thrilled.

Really Antony, Really??

Antony and the Johnsons are touring (collective yay!). They are, however, not coming to Los Angeles, and are planning a trip to Seattle. Oh wicked, fate, what is this terrible joke?

There appears to be time enough on the schedule to slip in an LA date, though not if it's after San Francisco, as that would entail some backtracking. Fine, whatever, so be it. I missed them in Portland playing with a symphony, and I missed them playing a tiny theatre down the street from my last apartment (with Devendra Banhart and Coco Rosie!), and I suppose that I will just resign myself to missing them again. Or not. There are such modes of transportation (aircraft!) that can take you long distances in a brief period of time, so we shall see.

Still though, really? Really?

Tour dates below, and via Pitchfork. In other news, the new LP The Crying Light drops 01/20 via Secretly Canadian, which, while cold comfort, is a happy thing indeed.

02-02 Glenside, PA - Keswick Theatre
02-03 Washington, DC - Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
02-04 Columbus, OH - Southern Theatre
02-07 Knoxville, TN - Big Ears Festival
02-08 Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse
02-12 Chicago, IL - Vic Theatre
02-13 Milwaukee, WI - Pabst Theater
02-14 Minneapolis, MN - Pantages Theatre
02-17 Toronto, Ontario - Queen Elizabeth Theatre
02-19 New York, NY - Town Hall
02-20 New York, NY - Town Hall
02-22 Boston, MA - Berklee Performance Center
02-24 San Francisco, CA - Nob Hill Masonic Center (Noise Pop)
02-27 Vancouver, British Columbia - Vogue Theatre
02-28 Seattle, WA - Moore Theatre

Oh Hi There; How About Some More Reflection?

Sometimes endings are beginnings, and obviously the reverse is also true. Los Angeles is wonderful, and I'm beginning to understand that there are some things that I've left behind in Seattle that I will have to let go of to move forward. If I don't, and don't do so actively, I will be captured in some sort of awful stasis; unable to move forward, and equally unable to move backwards. In short, there are people and emotions that must be released in order to avoid stagnation. It's wonderful to have people in your life that you love, that you would lay down your life for, but it's not healthy to live your life for them. We've all been the one left behind, waving at the U-Haul as our friends journey into their own lives (and likely we've all driven a few U-Hauls), but it's not healthy or good to hold on too tightly. There are relationships that we have forged that will carry us through our entire lives. People we have met who will hold us up and inspire us, and we will do so in kind; however there are others who may have made significant impacts that we must allow to simply dissipate. We must allow them the freedom to continue their own journeys as freely as we travel ours without hindrance or expectation; it was great while it lasted, but these partings, these partings they are inevitable.

Everyone that you know, that I know, that we know, we will lose someday. We will lose some of them to circumstance, to distance, to death; but we will lose them all. You will bury your parents, your best friend, your partner; or they will bury you. It is an immutable and unavoidable fact of life. It is something that we can't escape. My heart breaks into a thousand pieces, just reflecting on all of it, but at the same time, it makes it all so ridiculously beautiful. We have each other for such a short time, and there's so much that can be taken and learned and held and be wondered at. It's okay to let go, as long as we are conscious of what it is that we held on to to begin with.

I hope that you're reading; all of you.

Yup, Still Thinking About Those Civil Rights

Getting settled in Los Angeles, and proper updates are on the way, but I did want to post what I feel is a very eloquent dissection of civil unions vs marriage.



And while we're at it, the amazing "Prop 8 The Musical". Is it possible to like Neil Patrick Harris even more than we already do? (Dr. Horrible, anyone?)

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

And Off We Go.

I checked my horoscope for today, and found the following. Well there you go. Currently it's 8am, and I leave within the hour. Due to a slight change of plans, I will be making this journey entirely on my own; a prospect that is both thrilling and saddening. I love you all, and I will see you (some of you) soon.

::Libra::
For December 2: You're still examining the upside and downside of making a major move. This change would undoubtedly impact your work, family life and housing situation. Deep in your heart, you feel a powerful urge to wander and explore something exotic, new and ultra stimulating. Sure, there are risks - and many of your friends or family members may not understand why you're even considering this big adventure. Before the end of the week, most of them will. There's a big part of you that needs, needs, needs more romance and beauty in your life. If that's in short supply right now, what have you got to lose?

Packed and Ready to Go... Soon.

Well. Everything is packed. Everything has been put into storage, or into the trunk and the back seat of my car. Last night I slept barely four hours, waking myself with the fear that I would somehow oversleep my alarm and miss the truck pick up. Of course, this was not the case, and I made two car loads to storage, as well as a much needed coffee run before I underwent the tortuous experience of being rented a truck by someone who was "sorry, but I've never done this before".

The truck was filled without incident, and unloaded in the same manner; my friend Kevin had to head home for a computer problem for twenty minutes, and I was left alone to organize the mess of belongings that we had thus far stuffed into my 10x15 space. As I sorted the boxes, chairs, and paintings, I had a sudden moment of clarity; What the hell am I doing??

Suddenly the past few weeks of preparation were snapped into focus, and I realized that I was going to exist for the next several months with only the things that I could carry (or, as is more accurate, the things that fit into my car). Also suddenly obvious was the realization that these things that seemed so, so, minimal also constituted a large amount of stuff. The idea of being footloose and fancy free is a terribly romantic notion that I have bought into wholeheartedly, but really? I thought that it would all fit comfortably into my trunk. Not so, as I learned this evening. Close, but not so much.

Still though, as it stands presently, my keys are limited to the car key, the key to the storage lock, and, for the next two days, a shared key to my friend Becky's apartment. Inspiring? Yes. Overwhelming? Most definitely. Regardless, even if this is only for the short term, I hope to learn and gain so, so much more than were I to stay through another grey winter. As it is tonight, the fog has crept in, you can barely see past half a block on Queen Anne hill, and I am remarkably cozy. In three days though? Seventy five degrees and beaches. In three months? Who knows, though I am open to receive it, whatever it is.