Today was Inauguration Day and DC was bursting with excitement. They spent SO much money on security, but from what I am hearing so far, the throngs of police behaved themselves. I was ready today to join the huge groups of protesters present at the parade. All kinds of things happening. Two of my favorites:
www.turnyourbackonbush.org
www.10000jesuses.org

BUT I ended up feeling like today my plan needed to be really different, much more quiet and reflective about the next four years and particularly about the war in Iraq and what this means for all that. I went to this discussion panel this morning at a church called 'The Cost of War' with families of soldiers killed, a conscientious objector who had been a soldier in Iraq, and a number of organizations. It was really moving. Just the kind of event I wanted to be at today. Furthermore I talked for a long time with this old lady from Code Pink who confirmed my thoughts that today doesn't need to be chaotic in order to make change. I don't want to be a Christian that idolizes social action and dethrones prayer as a way of fighting back.

Afterwards, determined to forego the protest scene, I stood outside chilling out a bit watching thousands of people stream by. I don't want to feel jaded because I can relate to a lot of them, but part of me just wondered who is there because they really would go the extra mile to see change. They wouldn't just bang drums and treat these events like just another scene. I had to remind myself that behind all the Che Guevara t-shirts, dreadlocks and 'Fuck Bush' signs there were also a lot of people with really big hearts and a passion for peace. Know what I'm saying?

So I walked downtown to an exhibition called Eyes Wide Open, another reflection on the war put on by the American Friends Service Committee. This church had 1,370 combat boots lined up on the pews, on the alter and all around the church symbolizing all of the soldiers killed in Iraq. It also had hundreds more civilian shoes of all sizes around the periphery for Iraqi civilians. They couldn't have put 100,000 shoes in there but that was the estimate. The rest of the exhibit had pictures and panels with stats about the human costs of the war and war in general; all the programs that have been discarded because of our need to be mighty. Did you know Iraq used to have a 90% literacy rate? I didn't. There were all kinds of facts like that that were so powerful.

Sorry to talk so much after so long. But anyway, yeah I don't have much actual news about the re-coronation :). But that was my day.

Habakkuk 2:1-4:
I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved. And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.