Watching the clock as it got closer and closer to 12noon was a surreal experience… Yesterday, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States of America.
I sat in the exact same spot where I was when he won the election back in November…
I was still praying that he wouldn’t get assassinated right before our eyes…
…wondering what was going through his mind as he took up the presidency.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but there was something anti-climactic about the inauguration.
Although the presidential speech wasn’t rousing, it wasn’t bad either…
It was not for want of drama – the Chief Justice supplied that when he messed up the oath…
…nor for lack of humor – I think the “where black won’t be told to get back, where white will be alright, where the red man can get ahead man and where yellow won’t be mellow” sermon/prayer did it for me.
Yet it lacked that historic oomph that stirs your emotions and brings it home that this was a significant event.
Even then, when the disappointment at the oomphlessness of the whole thing passed, I couldn’t shake the sense that the world has changed a LOT over the past few years!
I was browsing over a newsletter from my United World College this afternoon and it struck me – The world is not getting any better!
These kids were writing about how their time at Pearson College has inspired them to believe that we can make the world a better place…
One of them shared his dream of a transformed United Nations, where many of the presidents would have been UWC graduates who have “international understanding” and cultural tolerance…
My heart sank at those sentiments and at Obama’s hopeful speech yesterday because the Bible says, the world is not getting any better!
As a matter of fact, things only get worse and when people cry out peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes.
Rather than international understanding, the hearts of men are growing colder and colder by the minute and yet we still hope…
Obama speaks hope, UWC’s teach hope, we need hope or else we have no reason to live.
We need hope to survive!
But it is vain if our hope is built on sinking sand.
This world is sinking sand.
So we’re living history folks
but soon history and eternity will meet…