Video and transcript of Bishop Robinson’s prayer

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 daughters’ 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.

Read the transcript here.

Union Leader: Robinson’s speech: Divisive, as expected

The day after Bishop Robinson’s invocation at the We Are One concert, the Union Leader ran this disappointing editorial disparaging his prayer:

Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, gave the opening prayer for the inaugural festivities in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. Ignoring the theme of unity set for the inauguration, Robinson gave not a prayer but a political speech, one worthy of a college sophomore hot to tweak his parents.

Robinson explained his non-Christian “prayer” by saying he thought previous inaugural prayers were “aggressively Christian.” In hope of excluding no one, he excluded Christ. Except, he mentioned God, so he left the athiests out in the cold. Oh, well.

By Robinson’s own logic, he should not have been allowed to pray at all for fear of offending nonbelievers. But that’s silly. And so is refusing to mention Christ for fear of offending non-Christians.

Through the years, Robinson has had many opportunities to make his beliefs known in ways that don’t offend and divide people. Most of the time, he chooses to divide. For a man of God, that’s really not productive behavior. But it sure draws a lot of attention to Gene Robinson.

While not the Union Leader’s work, this comment implicated God’s almighty hand as meddling with the event sound system:

Don’t feel too bad, apparently the microphone or speakers stopped working as soon as Robinson started his tirade, and only a few people at the front actually heard him. The vast 700 thousand more couldn’t hear a word, and as the Obama inauguration team told HBO that Robinson’s “prayer” was confined to the pre-show portion, it wasn’t recorded or televised across the nation.

Perhaps God’s hand in action? I think he’s trying to tell Gene Robinson something, let’s hope he listens.
- Karen Duffy, Manchester, NH

Read it here.

Bishop Gene Robinson to appear on the Daily Show

He is listed as tonight’s guest on the roster. See it here.

Not a bad follow-up to Bishop N. T. Wright appearing on the Colbert Report.

Bishop Gene Robinson blogs again

Bishop Gene Robinson will blog his experiences at president-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration events in Washington, D.C. He will be using his old blog, Canterbury Tales from the Fringe, again.

Bishop Robinson last used this blog while at Lambeth Conference in 2008. Although uninvited he appeared at many “fringe” events there and wrote about his experiences. Hopefully this blog will show us what happens behind the cable broadcasts and media events.