On going to the Inauguration

Some brief thoughts on attending the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

As some of you know, Lisa and I traveled to Washington on Monday and Tuesday to attend the inauguration. If you wish you can see a few photographs from our visit on a fuzzy photo blog I put together for the event. http://fuzzyshot.com/jameshazelwood We went with Ben and Valerie Lucas, my good friend Erik and his 10 year old son Tyler. Some of you said I was on TV being interviewed at the airport. Ahh, my 8 seconds of fame.

Here are a few thoughts:

First, I was struck with the silence in the crowd. We were fairly close, about 1/4 mile from the capital. We had gotten up around 5 and walked the distance in the cold. But it was so striking how silent the crowd was during the inauguration. People listened, prayed during the prayers, were quiet during the music. The whole experience was quite magical.

Second, although the crowd was filled with many people who were strong supporters of the new president, I did come away from his speech with a hope that we are now entering a time where idealogy will take a back seat.

For too long we have defined ourselves as liberal or conservatives. I'm tired of that mantra. I think the country and the world are tired of it too. I'm hoping for a new era of pragmatism, or focusing on what works.

It is easy to be ideological when times are good and we are living high on the hog, but when times are tough, we don't have the energy to focus on petty differences and who is more right. No, now we must focus on basics.

My prayer coming out of the inauguration is that we will get back to the basic work of rebuilding peoples lives and faith.

Pastor Jim