No Hiding Place Down Here

Rev. Jeffrey Symynkywicz, January 18, 2009

“On the Pulse of Morning”

Maya Angelou

January 20, 1993

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no more hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sings and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of

Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot ...
You the Ashanti , the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day

You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

The Sermon by Rev. Jeffrey B. Symynkywicz

            It must be a real challenge to write an inaugural address. Not that I wouldn’t mind having it. Not as President, of course.  I long ago gave up any dreams of becoming President. (My last name was just too looooong, I decided.)

            But “Presidential Speech Writer”—that I could do!

            To write the words that would inspire the multitudes. That would capture the moment in history. That would catapult us as a nation into the future. That would be remembered through all time, and be played over and over again on CNN and NBC-- and Youtube.

            That I could handle.

            Speechwriters get to hone the words, and polish the phrases, and set the tone… and then, don’t have to do anything about getting all those high-sounding, inspiring ideas implemented. They leave that—all the politics, and compromise, and arm-twisting—to others. While they go back into their offices, and write more beautiful words.

            But then again, maybe it’s not so easy.

            Because, if you think about it, the chances of succeeding—really succeeding at Inaugural Address writing—are pretty slim; not one-in-a-million, winning the Megabucks slim; but well under 50/50, certainly.

            If even the best baseball players—those with lifetime batting averages over .300—succeed less than one time in three—then I’m afraid that presidential Inaugural Address writers have an even somewhat lower batting average than that.

            Because, once the Inauguration festivities are over, and once the pundits have had their initial say, and once the speech has been watched on Youtube a few thousand times-- (the most viewed Youtube video of all time, something called “History of Dance” by the comedian Judson Laipply, has been viewed 55.8 million times; in comparison, the second Inaugural Address of Ronald Reagan, delivered inside the Rotunda of the Capitol due to bad weather, has been viewed about 8 thousand times)-- people, pretty much, except for historians maybe, forget all about it.

            There have been exceptions, of course. A few. Everyone (almost) remembers John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” (American Rhetoric recently chose Kennedy’s inaugural as the second greatest American speech of the 20^th century; first, not surprisingly, was Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream”.)

            Third on that list of “Greatest Speeches” was Franklin Roosevelt’s first Inaugural Address—now remembered for the line “All we have to fear is fear itself.”; at the time, in the throes of the Great Depression, lauded for its sentiments: “The Nation asks for action, and action now.”

            The only other two Inaugural Addresses even on the list were Woodrow Wilson’s and Ronald Reagan’s (the first address of each). Gerald Ford was there as well, with his “Address on Taking the Oath of Office”, which is the closest our only appointed President ever had to an inaugural address, I guess. (That’s when President Ford said, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over,” after the resignation of Richard Nixon. It’s not when he said, “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln.”—another of his memorable lines, and a wonderfully humble and sel-deprecating one, I’ve always thought.)

Now remember: this list is for 20^th century speeches only. There were memorable presidential inaugural speeches before then—though the only one I can remember, honestly, is Lincoln ’s second Inaugural Address, when he talks about the coming of the Civil War, and how it was perhaps the judgment of God for the sin of slavery, and closes with those truly immortal words of reconciliation:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Lincoln ’s second Inaugural Address was also one of the shortest on record: just 701 words. (The average sermon, by comparison, which feels like about 9 million words, is actually about 2000, give or take a couple hundred.)

The shortest inaugural speech ever was the second address of George Washington:

“Fellow-citizens: I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united America .

“Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (beside incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.”

That’s it. That’s the whole speech.  One-hundred-and-thirty-four well chosen words; at which point in most sermons, the preacher hasn’t even adjusted his glasses, or put down the water glass.

By comparison, the longest Inaugural Address on record was that of President William Henry Harrison in 1841, who delivered an address of 8,500 words, an hour and three-quarters in length, in a snowstorm, without a coat. It’s probably no surprise, then, that Harrison died of pneumonia thirty-one days later: so he is known for both the longest inaugural address, and  the shortest term of office.

As I mentioned, that article from American Rhetoric dealt with only speeches of the 20^th Century. But I doubt, even if they were qualified, any presidential inaugural addresses of the 21^st century (of which there have been two so far; both by you know who) would have made the cut. Not even the first with its closing reference to “an angel who rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm”; or the second, with its thirty-something references to “freedom” which embellished it.

But to be fair, the speeches of President Bush’s immediate predecessor, William Jefferson Clinton, were qualified for consideration by American Rhetoric, and they didn’t make the cut, either. (His address following the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City did, however; as did Hillary Clinton’s speech at the U.N. Conference in Beijing in 1995, “Women’s Rights are Human Rights”.)

But neither of Clinton ’s inaugural addresses made the list. Not the first, calling us to leave to mountain top to service in the valley. Nor the second, with its image of building a bridge into the 21^st Century.

That’s not because they were bad speeches. It’s because we just don’t remember presidential inaugural addresses, by and large. Not unless we go and look them up, and take that old musty volume off the shelves; or look for it with Google. That’s what it took for me to remember those references to the angel who rides the whirlwind and even the bridge to the 21^st century. And I’d even forgotten everything about Jimmy Carter’s speech, with its reference to the Old Testament prophet, Micah.

I don’t even remember Bill Clinton at this first inaugural (that was 16 years ago now already)—though I do seem to remember that Hillary wore this big, God-awful hat or something (though maybe I’m mixing her up with Marilyn Quayle in 1989; the mind does that sometimes).

But clear as day, I do remember Maya Angelou that day in January of 1993. I remember the presence of that great African American teacher, writer, and poet. I can remember what she said, every word of it, as she spoke her poem, “On the Pulse of Morning” before the assembled multitude in our nation’s capital.

Poetry tends to carve a deeper line in the minds of many of us. Perhaps that is because poetry is better suited to prophecy, and prose to politics; and until we have a poet-president (something which will probably not happen in the lifetimes of any of us, but who knows?) we must bear with the lumbering prose of our statesmen.

Poetry is often a step ahead of business as usual, and that is what makes it prophetic. Even, as in the case of Dr. Angelou’s poem, perhaps, it runs a full generation ahead.

Maya Angelou’s scope was broad: indeed, as broad as could be—stretching back to our primordial existence on this planet, to the very mastodon, our most ancient of evolutionary forbears.

The voice of poetry calls out not from nation or state, or tribe or race, but from the very earth: it calls us to the fullness of our humanity. It reminds us of our holy origins (“created only a little lower than the angels”)—and of the tragedy of too much of our history: of how we have “crouched too long in the bruising darkness/ have lain too long face down in ignorance.”

But the River sings on. The River which is Life. The River which is Change. The River which is Hope.

The River which sings the song of the glory of our birth.

The riverside which calls to us, to study war no more.

The River whose song awakens within us our own songs:

And brings to birth our different trees, burgeoning with the wonder of our individualism and diversity:

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.

We are all part of this wondrous land, this chosen piece of Earth, this amazing, conflicted, complex, glorious American Epic:

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot
You the Ashanti , the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

That dream of America will not be moved.

That dream will abide, and persist, and come to life again, over and over again.

In spite of Civil War, and Jim Crow, and “No Irish Need Apply”.

In spite of so-called “Defense of Marriage” acts, and discrimination, and oppression.

In spite of robber barons, and Wall Street crashes, and the cancer of speculation,

In spite of Out of the cheating, out of the shouting,
Out of the windbags, the patriotic spouting,
Out of uncertainty and doubting,
Out of the carpet-bag and brass spittoon,
It will come again - our marching song will come again…

“History, despite its wrenching pain,

Cannot be unlived, and if faced

With courage, need not be lived again.”

Perhaps this is the time.

Perhaps this is the day.

At last.

May we lift up our eyes to this new day breaking;

May we give birth again
To the dream.

And that is the work of all of us—

there will be no hiding place down here for any of us,

in our comfortable dens of isolation and privilege,

no hiding place left from the work that is before us now—

if the dream is to be made real.

That is the work of all of us now—

preachers and poets and politicians;

shoe-shone clerks and executives;

mothers and fathers; store clerks and school teachers;

all of us.

The horizon leans forward.

Our day has come.

A new day beckons—

a bright new morning

(There have been such days before, I know;

There have been other bright mornings, as well, of course; that all too swiftly turned into just another day; just another mundane and drear noontime of life.)

May this one be truly bright and new—

May this be the day when we grasp, at last, our oneness:

the profound truth that we all more alike than we are different;

that we are joined as one in a brotherhood as wide as this great land,

in a sisterhood as deep as the beating heart of rock:

as solid as rock; as sustaining as a river; as resilient and burgeoning forth as a great Tree of Life; as a dream of life:

May that dream live on, the refutation of every challenge and limitation; the affirmation of everything worthy of praise. May all darkness and sorrow, all tears and sadness, all fear and shadows, be cast away in the burning light of the fine new morning—that good morning—we have before us now.

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