WORDS OF WISDOM THAT WEAR WELL FOR THE INAUGU- RATION



God is the interrogator of the human - not the other way around...
God challenges humanity to be fully human:

Human freedom only comes into view, and begins to be achieved when God's challenge is heard and grasped,

The world is unredeemed (i.e., the world remains in bondage to dehumanizing gods, ways, and structures): The task of the religious community and the religious person is to share in redeeming the world, or better, in preparing the world for God's redemption of it (i.e., in helping, or preparing, the world to become free from slavery to dehumanization and idolatry),

Full human dignity comes only through full recognition and acceptance of the fullness of human responsibility,

The deepest agony is the agony of spiritually stunted life.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline, the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say No to oneself.

Trivialization of life, vulgarization of culture, and false worship of the self, help destroy the capacity for responsibility and for self-discipline, and thus help destroy human dignity.

The need is for "audacity," "guts," "defiance."

Conformity to the American temper, in many of its manifestations, must be resisted for the sake of our humanity

The fundamental nature of faithful relationship to God thus also means that the community and person of faith are:

Deeply and painfully sensitized to the injustice and cruelty and absence of compassion in the world, and in themselves.

They are appalled and stunned by the human abdication of itself to evil inclination

They bear in themselves the frightful agony of human life.

The community and individual of faith recognize that they, too, share responsibility for the anguish of humanity.

A good conscience is demonic,

Contrition and humility are merely acts of recognition of one's true life.

And, ultimately, we are not taught to feel accused, to bear a sense of boundless guilt. We are asked to feel elated, bred to meet the tasks that never end.

Every child is a prince; every man and woman is obliged to feel the world was created for their sake.

Abraham Joshua Heschel


LET FREEDOM RING
Toward the end of the concert that drew half a million people to cheer Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger (singing a spirited "This Land Is Your Land"), Mary J. Blige, Stevie Wonder and the president-elect, U2 took the stage.

Before launching into "Pride (In The Name Of Love," the band's tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,) Bono noted that the crowd was gathered on the mall where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

"Let freedom ring. On this spot where we're standing 46 years ago Dr. King had a dream. On Tuesday, that dream comes to pass."

" "This is not just an American dream," he said, adding that it was "also an Irish dream, a European dream, an African dream... an Israeli dream... and also a Palestinian dream."

The Nation