What's wrong with dreaming?
Our church has been going through a rather significant change the past few months. Bill Ross, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Athens, moved on to a new calling in Marietta back in August and since then we've had a litany of guest pastors take the pulpit on Sunday morning, holding the place until we name an interim pastor and then, finally, a new head pastor.
Largely because of the birth of our daughter, The Wife and I haven't attended many 11 a.m. services like we traditionally do, but another reason is because we haven't felt particularly inspired to go because we were so closely attached to Ross, who was the pastor who helped convince us to find a home at First Baptist. But, eager to shake those cobwebs and get back in the habit of going to church, we got the kid dressed and ready and actually got in the pew on time.
And what a treat it was. This past Sunday, we were fortunate enough to hear from Dock Hollingsworth who spoke about the creation story in Genesis (a rather odd topic seeing how it was Epiphany Sunday, but no matter). The sermon was solid and interesting, and I enjoyed it. But something stood out to me from his message.
Hollingsworth read the first three chapters of Genesis in their entirety, noting the different elements of God's creating came into being via Him speaking ... that the world we know is here because of words. Coming the night after debates in New Hampshire, a politically progressive Christian like myself can't help but recognize the obvious.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to draw some false parallel here, nor am I suggesting that Barack Obama is the second coming, but I do want to stress that this particular detail from this sermon - whether taken literally or as an analogy - gives weight to the belief that there are power in words.
Obama noted this in an interview this morning as he said that change and empowerment begins with articulating what your hopes and dreams are.
I don't read The Huffington Post a whole lot, but I found her take on this pretty dead-on ...
... Clinton is actually trying to convince voters that Obama is too positive, too optimistic, too inspirational. In a speech she called him "an untested man who offers false hope," and in Saturday's debate she said, "We don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered."
Oh, yeah, that's the last thing we need, someone who actually seeks to inspire Americans to allow their reach to exceed their grasp. That's the problem with leaders like Lincoln, Kennedy, and Martin Luther King -- they just weren't realistic enough. King shouldn't have said, "I have a dream!," he should have said, "I have a realistic view of what we should settle for! We probably won't be able to pass the Civil Rights Act, but we might be able to pass a bill condemning segregated water fountains. You probably won't be able to sit at the front of the bus, but I might be able to get you to the middle."
This is who Hillary Clinton is, through and through. "I have always tried to strike a balance," she said in 2004. "I think you have to view the world as it is, not as you would wish it to be." That's a long, dispiriting way from Bobby Kennedy's "Some men see things as they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'"
Words inspire. Words motivate. Words matter.
If they didn't, Clinton wouldn't be so concerned.
Largely because of the birth of our daughter, The Wife and I haven't attended many 11 a.m. services like we traditionally do, but another reason is because we haven't felt particularly inspired to go because we were so closely attached to Ross, who was the pastor who helped convince us to find a home at First Baptist. But, eager to shake those cobwebs and get back in the habit of going to church, we got the kid dressed and ready and actually got in the pew on time.
And what a treat it was. This past Sunday, we were fortunate enough to hear from Dock Hollingsworth who spoke about the creation story in Genesis (a rather odd topic seeing how it was Epiphany Sunday, but no matter). The sermon was solid and interesting, and I enjoyed it. But something stood out to me from his message.
Hollingsworth read the first three chapters of Genesis in their entirety, noting the different elements of God's creating came into being via Him speaking ... that the world we know is here because of words. Coming the night after debates in New Hampshire, a politically progressive Christian like myself can't help but recognize the obvious.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to draw some false parallel here, nor am I suggesting that Barack Obama is the second coming, but I do want to stress that this particular detail from this sermon - whether taken literally or as an analogy - gives weight to the belief that there are power in words.
Obama noted this in an interview this morning as he said that change and empowerment begins with articulating what your hopes and dreams are.
I don't read The Huffington Post a whole lot, but I found her take on this pretty dead-on ...
... Clinton is actually trying to convince voters that Obama is too positive, too optimistic, too inspirational. In a speech she called him "an untested man who offers false hope," and in Saturday's debate she said, "We don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered."
Oh, yeah, that's the last thing we need, someone who actually seeks to inspire Americans to allow their reach to exceed their grasp. That's the problem with leaders like Lincoln, Kennedy, and Martin Luther King -- they just weren't realistic enough. King shouldn't have said, "I have a dream!," he should have said, "I have a realistic view of what we should settle for! We probably won't be able to pass the Civil Rights Act, but we might be able to pass a bill condemning segregated water fountains. You probably won't be able to sit at the front of the bus, but I might be able to get you to the middle."
This is who Hillary Clinton is, through and through. "I have always tried to strike a balance," she said in 2004. "I think you have to view the world as it is, not as you would wish it to be." That's a long, dispiriting way from Bobby Kennedy's "Some men see things as they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'"
Words inspire. Words motivate. Words matter.
If they didn't, Clinton wouldn't be so concerned.
posted by Jmac at 4:42 PM
1 Comments:
The substance of your post gets a hearty "Amen." We speak new realities into being all the time. Talk changes things.
But not always. Sometimes people just use talk to manipulate for their own ambition, and the changes it symbolizes never comes to fruition. What kind of talk Obama is giving us--whether he is a genuine reformer (and I repeat my earlier question, what kinds of reforms, specifically?), or a demagogue, remains to be seen.
I am wary of the media. As a general rule, if you TALK about change they love you (b/c change candidacies are a good story). But if you actually try to bring about change they laugh at you.
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