“WITNESS” TO OBAMA’S INAUGURATION
By Larry Delano Coleman, Esq.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
My wife and I drove from Kansas City, Missouri, to Washington, D.C. to
partake in the epochal inauguration of Illinois Senator, Barack Hussein
Obama, as the first black President of the United States in January 2009.
We spent the first night in St. Louis with childhood friends. Departing early
the next morning, I glanced at, and was recognized by, my third grade “girl
friend,” Gail, now, herself, a school teacher, in a QT convenience store/gas
station coffee aisle. I had not seen her, easily, since the 1960s. My joyous
reunion with Gail and her adult daughter was compounded by my discovery
that, they, too, were meeting family members to drive to D.C. for the historic
inaugural. We were both amazed and reassured by this double coincidence.
The drive was uneventful, even restful--as my wife, Lyla, did most of the
driving--until nightfall found us on Highway 70 near its conjunction with
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, where it began to snow and sleet and
rain, so heavily, the lane dividers disappeared and visibility, too. We had a
choice to make: take the Pennsylvania Turnpike with its narrow lanes and
steep ascents and descents through the Allegheny Mountains; or drop down
into West Virginia and take our chances with that flatter, southern route
through the same mountains. We took the southern route, and spent the night
in southern Pennsylvania, 20 miles from West Virginia in a warm motel.
The next morning we arrived in the District of Columbia, via Silver Spring,
Maryland, on Sunday, January 19. Driving down “sweet” Georgia Avenue,
toward northwest Washington, nostalgia overwhelmed me; I was being
mysteriously summoned to “The Yard,” my alma mater, Howard University,
“The Capstone of Negro Education.” Relenting to the spirit, I rolled onto
main campus, past the security guard station, which kindly waved me in,
after looking at the mud on my car, my Missouri tags, and that “don’t you
know me” look in my confident eyes. Cars, as usual, were parked
everywhere. But as fate, and the good Lord, would have it, we found the
perfect spot.
We then headed for Cramton Auditorium to see what was up.
Unbeknown to us, the Right Reverend Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of
Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, and confidante of Barack
Obama, was just about to preach, when we entered the overflowing
vestibule. This was too wonderful to imagine. Others, we later learned, had
been redirected to three different overflow facilities, so massive were the
earlier crowds. But, our timing was exquisite. We walked right in. We were
blessed as Rev. Wright, also a Howard alumnus, preached “till my dungeon
shook, and my chains fell off”.
Leaving Howard, we retrieved “Silver” Inauguration tickets, and logistical
information, from the Capitol Hill office of our Congressman, the Honorable
Emmanuel Cleaver II, Democrat from Kansas City, Missouri, who had
kindly befriended us.
Thereafter, we drove to 13th and “U” Street, N. W. , to
Ben’s Chili Bowl, in a vain attempt to procure a legendary half-smoke,
newly popularized--indeed sanctified--by an unannounced, but televised,
visit of President-Elect Barack Obama during the previous week. The line
was too long to get in, so we shopped among the outdoor vendors at a
nearby Ethiopian flea-market, where all things Obama were on sale. After
purchasing a few items, we headed to Northeast Washington to the residence
of my late mother’s first cousin, Edward Merriweather, our obliging host.
Edward and his wife, Clementine, both retired school teachers, are natives of
Canton, Mississippi, also my birth place. Their sense of family and
hospitality are overwhelming. They spoiled us. We certainly did not lack
for anything. Providentially, we resided only three blocks from the D.C.
Armory subway station, our means of transportation to and from the
inauguration at the Capitol.
The morning before the inauguration, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday,
I attended a Howard University Law School Alumni Association luncheon,
at Marriott Hotel, 14th and Pennsylvania, N.W., where I delivered the
invocation, which was keynoted by Congressman Gregory Meek of New
York, who was a year behind me at law school. The empty seat on the dais
next to me was to have been occupied by Illinois Senator Roland Burris,
another Howard Law alumnus, but he did not appear. At the luncheon, I was
pleased to see my good friends, and Howard Law graduates Kamau King,
Kwame Osei Reed, Donald Thigpen, and Robert Bell, all National Bar Association stalwarts,among others.
That evening we finally got our half-smokes from Ben’s! Once again, we battled the long lines, but there was an irrestible and lively esprit d'corps, among the prospective consumers, which mitigated the cold and the length of the wait.
Finally, the day of reckoning arrived. We had been warned to arrive early
due to record crowds. We heeded that advise, but it did not matter. The
crowd was prehensile, contiguous, viscous, alive. Getting to one’s
designated area was an act of grace, subject to fluid dynamics. The logistics
were designed to effectuate the very diverse crowd’s control, not to expedite
movement, nor to differentiate among ticket holders. No official knew
anything about anything, except “keep moving.” After hopelessly battling
the Mall crowd for 4 hours, and finally being blocked by a phalanx of
mounted police, I had a choice to make: stand where I was and see and hear
nothing Presidential , in the cold; or catch the subway back to my cousin’s
house, where food, beverages, warmth, a television and a front-row seat
awaited me. Hello, Brother Obama! And good-bye, brother! I booked.
Headed back to the subway station, I encountered my lovely wife, standing
in yet, another long serpentine queue, of course. Serendipitously, I had
somehow passed her in route to the National Mall, even though she had
caught the train, before me. When I told her I was headed back to Edward’s
home, owing to the lack of accessibility for “silver” ticket holders, she
declined my invitation to return, and ignored my admonition about lack of
access, and stuck it out. She claims that she ended up hearing, but not seeing
anything, being blocked by a tree near the wading pool. As for me, I saw
and heard; ate and drank; was warm and well-seated, enjoying instant replay.
God bless America, and to each his own!
Below are links to some photos of our beautiful First Family:
http://news.aol.com/main/politics/article/obamas-in-new-yorkcity/
452442?icid=webmailwbmlaol
dl1link5http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Fmain%2Fpolitics%2Farticl
e%2Fobamas-in-new-york-city%2F452442
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Quantum Theology
“Quantum Theology”-- (A poem without end)
Friday, June 12, 2009...
By Rev. Dr. Larry D. Coleman
1
On the verge of happiness
On the edge of joy
Toward “Quantum Theology”
We must employ:
2
All disciplines available
To usher in--
A man-God relationship
Devoid of “sin“;
3
Bereft of “evil,”
It shall subsume
The notion of devotion
And the shock of doom.
4
Jesus died on the cross
To expiate
The “sins” of all and
To propitiate:
5
Yet, prevailing doctrine
Promotes the conceit:
His life, death and resurrection
Are yet incomplete.
6
Despite his oblation
So perfect and true,
There remains a cross
For me and a cross for you.
7
If “sin” precedes
And if “sin” is abides
Was the Savior’s death
Mere fratricide?
8
Of no force, nor effect?
Just another dead Jew
On a Roman cross
In the morning dew?
9
“Heaven and earth shall pass away:
But my words shall not pass away.”
Mark 13:31 predicts, while Gen. 1:1
“In the beginning God” inveighs:
10
An ineffable energizing spirit,
Creator of time and space;
The devolution of matter,
Within God’s enduring grace.
11
Jehovah created Good and Evil
According to Isaiah 45:7.
“He is before all things,” says Col.1:17
“and in him all things hold together.”
12
“To be or not to be,”
Wrote Shakespeare in Hamlet.
The harmony of polarity is
Quantum Theology’s epaulet.
13
Whether wave or dot nor neither
Each observer’s act decides.
Here and there simultaneously,
Where curses and blessings betide.
14
Both Literal and figurative together
At once, male and female too.
It’s the reconciliation of allegory
With what science believes is true.
15
It’s where math and myth
Approve each other’s theorems;
Where life in all dominions
Is varied as Solomon’s harems.
16
Where everybody is somebody
On God’s spectrum of being
Where everything is everything
Divinely imbued with meaning.
17
“Who (or what) shall separate us from
The love of Christ?” asks Rom.8:35
“Neither death nor life, nor angels nor
Principalities ...” no jive!
18
“Nor things present nor things to come,
Nor height nor depth, nor any other --
Created thing, shall… separate us
From … Christ” our brother.
19
In Christ, the wolf and the lamb shall dwell together.
Likewise, The leopard and the kid.
Cow and bear are not otherwise.
Nor shall the knowledge of the Lord be hid.
20
Isaiah 11:10 predicts: “a root shall come out of Jesse,”
Whom the Gentiles will seek,
Enabling recovery of that ancient remnant,
And the redemption of the meek.
21
The amorphous God and the personal God
Exist as one and the same.
“His" Uncertainty Principle, And
“His” Ordered Universe both bear “His” sacred name.
22
Symbol and substance walk together
From one source both having come,
Light and dark and day and night
Unite in the Summum Bonum.
23
Like a treasure hid in a field, Matt.13:44,
Quantum theology awaited “discovery”
By intrepid explorers, undaunted;
Wholly fixated on its recovery.
24
That which was, that which is,
and that which is yet to be;
Sanctified, mortified, glorified:
There for the blessed to “see.”
25
Great in the kingdom of heaven
Are they who do and teach divine law.
But least in the kingdom of heaven
Are they who do not, but scofflaw. (Matt.5:19)
26
Then Jesus said to his disciples,
"If anyone would come after me,
he must deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me. (Matt.16:24)
27
Heed what you hear: (Mark 4:24)
With what measure you mete, it shall be measured
to you--Pressed down, shaken together (Luke 6:38)
And running over: a good measure is your treasure.
28
Go not into the way Gentiles, nor Samaritans,
But only to “Jews” who are “worthy"; (Matt.10:5-15)
Then, only extend your peace to them conditionally.
Should it be rejected, shake off their dust fully.
29
While all may grieve, all may not receive.
Just like all seed does not bear fruit.
And that fig tree which bears leaves but no food
is deservedly cut off at the root.
30
For he that hath to him shall be given:
And he that hath not, from him shall be taken
Even that which he hath. (Mark 4:25)Sow, then,
Sower your seed faithfully, without fear, awakened.
31
For God has not given us the spirit
Of fear. But of love and of power
And of a sound mind. (2 Tim.1:7) We are
“Thechildren of God” (Rom.8:16) every day and hour.
32
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us,(Ephe.3:20)
through his spiritual food and drink;
33
Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus
throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty,
dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
Friday, June 12, 2009...
By Rev. Dr. Larry D. Coleman
1
On the verge of happiness
On the edge of joy
Toward “Quantum Theology”
We must employ:
2
All disciplines available
To usher in--
A man-God relationship
Devoid of “sin“;
3
Bereft of “evil,”
It shall subsume
The notion of devotion
And the shock of doom.
4
Jesus died on the cross
To expiate
The “sins” of all and
To propitiate:
5
Yet, prevailing doctrine
Promotes the conceit:
His life, death and resurrection
Are yet incomplete.
6
Despite his oblation
So perfect and true,
There remains a cross
For me and a cross for you.
7
If “sin” precedes
And if “sin” is abides
Was the Savior’s death
Mere fratricide?
8
Of no force, nor effect?
Just another dead Jew
On a Roman cross
In the morning dew?
9
“Heaven and earth shall pass away:
But my words shall not pass away.”
Mark 13:31 predicts, while Gen. 1:1
“In the beginning God” inveighs:
10
An ineffable energizing spirit,
Creator of time and space;
The devolution of matter,
Within God’s enduring grace.
11
Jehovah created Good and Evil
According to Isaiah 45:7.
“He is before all things,” says Col.1:17
“and in him all things hold together.”
12
“To be or not to be,”
Wrote Shakespeare in Hamlet.
The harmony of polarity is
Quantum Theology’s epaulet.
13
Whether wave or dot nor neither
Each observer’s act decides.
Here and there simultaneously,
Where curses and blessings betide.
14
Both Literal and figurative together
At once, male and female too.
It’s the reconciliation of allegory
With what science believes is true.
15
It’s where math and myth
Approve each other’s theorems;
Where life in all dominions
Is varied as Solomon’s harems.
16
Where everybody is somebody
On God’s spectrum of being
Where everything is everything
Divinely imbued with meaning.
17
“Who (or what) shall separate us from
The love of Christ?” asks Rom.8:35
“Neither death nor life, nor angels nor
Principalities ...” no jive!
18
“Nor things present nor things to come,
Nor height nor depth, nor any other --
Created thing, shall… separate us
From … Christ” our brother.
19
In Christ, the wolf and the lamb shall dwell together.
Likewise, The leopard and the kid.
Cow and bear are not otherwise.
Nor shall the knowledge of the Lord be hid.
20
Isaiah 11:10 predicts: “a root shall come out of Jesse,”
Whom the Gentiles will seek,
Enabling recovery of that ancient remnant,
And the redemption of the meek.
21
The amorphous God and the personal God
Exist as one and the same.
“His" Uncertainty Principle, And
“His” Ordered Universe both bear “His” sacred name.
22
Symbol and substance walk together
From one source both having come,
Light and dark and day and night
Unite in the Summum Bonum.
23
Like a treasure hid in a field, Matt.13:44,
Quantum theology awaited “discovery”
By intrepid explorers, undaunted;
Wholly fixated on its recovery.
24
That which was, that which is,
and that which is yet to be;
Sanctified, mortified, glorified:
There for the blessed to “see.”
25
Great in the kingdom of heaven
Are they who do and teach divine law.
But least in the kingdom of heaven
Are they who do not, but scofflaw. (Matt.5:19)
26
Then Jesus said to his disciples,
"If anyone would come after me,
he must deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me. (Matt.16:24)
27
Heed what you hear: (Mark 4:24)
With what measure you mete, it shall be measured
to you--Pressed down, shaken together (Luke 6:38)
And running over: a good measure is your treasure.
28
Go not into the way Gentiles, nor Samaritans,
But only to “Jews” who are “worthy"; (Matt.10:5-15)
Then, only extend your peace to them conditionally.
Should it be rejected, shake off their dust fully.
29
While all may grieve, all may not receive.
Just like all seed does not bear fruit.
And that fig tree which bears leaves but no food
is deservedly cut off at the root.
30
For he that hath to him shall be given:
And he that hath not, from him shall be taken
Even that which he hath. (Mark 4:25)Sow, then,
Sower your seed faithfully, without fear, awakened.
31
For God has not given us the spirit
Of fear. But of love and of power
And of a sound mind. (2 Tim.1:7) We are
“Thechildren of God” (Rom.8:16) every day and hour.
32
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us,(Ephe.3:20)
through his spiritual food and drink;
33
Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus
throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty,
dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
INCIPIENCE
“INCIPIENCE”
(Poetic tribute to Miles Davis’ and
John Coltrane’s “So What”)
5/19/09
By Larry D. Coleman, Esq.
Doom-da-doom-da-doom. Doom. Duh-dup. Doom-da-doom-da-doom. Duh-Doom. Boop pah doo-dup!
Sensate sound. Slipping, slithering, sliding: silently, by osmosis, into my soul.
On a faint fetal frequency both heard and felt.
“So what?” Asks Miles. “So what?” Asks Trane.
One trump. One sax. One oscillation.
Vibrating against the backdrop of an inert microwave cosmology. Jam. Jah-Jam. Jam. Jah-Jam. Jam. Jah-Jam. Beep-Bop.
Horn blowers are heralds, you know. Blow, blow, blow. Blow by blow!
A searing sound of the trumpet. Roiling rhythms from a ram’s horn.
Mending, restoring, reviving. Healing. It’s medicinal.
Parallel scales and alternative octaves from somewhere beyond, heralding and harkening a new day, a new relationship, a new syncretism. Work.
Transformative wails . Duh-dup. Duh-dup. Faith comes by hearing, by hearing, by hearing. Ushers all. Ushers, y’all.
Ushering modalities never heard, possibilities never felt. Exemplifying infinity’s accessibility. Cool. Quintessentially cool. Insouciant. Near absolute zero in deep space orbiting redolent substrates of consciousness. Lord help!
Duh-dup. Duh-dup. Down easy. Off key, but in key. Off tune, but in tune. Off scale, but in scale. Yet, always on time. Duh-dup. Duh-dup.
Discordant yet harmonic. Passing the baton. Trump t o Sax. Sax to Trump. And back again. Conjuring. And driving rhythms, like driving rains, cleaning. Chump-to-chump.
Lessons. Lessons learned long after the teacher is gone. Duh-Dup. Duh-Dup. Duh-Dup. Holler if you hear me!
A legacy of love for us to untangle, decipher, interpret and share, when we become. When we graduate. Crystallize. Incipience made perfect.
Doom-da-doom-da-doom. Doom. Duh-dup. Doom-da-doom-da-doom. Duh-Doom. Duh-Doom-doom-doom!
#30
(Poetic tribute to Miles Davis’ and
John Coltrane’s “So What”)
5/19/09
By Larry D. Coleman, Esq.
http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/5.html
Doom-da-doom-da-doom. Doom. Duh-dup. Doom-da-doom-da-doom. Duh-Doom. Boop pah doo-dup!
Sensate sound. Slipping, slithering, sliding: silently, by osmosis, into my soul.
On a faint fetal frequency both heard and felt.
“So what?” Asks Miles. “So what?” Asks Trane.
One trump. One sax. One oscillation.
Vibrating against the backdrop of an inert microwave cosmology. Jam. Jah-Jam. Jam. Jah-Jam. Jam. Jah-Jam. Beep-Bop.
Horn blowers are heralds, you know. Blow, blow, blow. Blow by blow!
A searing sound of the trumpet. Roiling rhythms from a ram’s horn.
Mending, restoring, reviving. Healing. It’s medicinal.
Parallel scales and alternative octaves from somewhere beyond, heralding and harkening a new day, a new relationship, a new syncretism. Work.
Transformative wails . Duh-dup. Duh-dup. Faith comes by hearing, by hearing, by hearing. Ushers all. Ushers, y’all.
Ushering modalities never heard, possibilities never felt. Exemplifying infinity’s accessibility. Cool. Quintessentially cool. Insouciant. Near absolute zero in deep space orbiting redolent substrates of consciousness. Lord help!
Duh-dup. Duh-dup. Down easy. Off key, but in key. Off tune, but in tune. Off scale, but in scale. Yet, always on time. Duh-dup. Duh-dup.
Discordant yet harmonic. Passing the baton. Trump t o Sax. Sax to Trump. And back again. Conjuring. And driving rhythms, like driving rains, cleaning. Chump-to-chump.
Lessons. Lessons learned long after the teacher is gone. Duh-Dup. Duh-Dup. Duh-Dup. Holler if you hear me!
A legacy of love for us to untangle, decipher, interpret and share, when we become. When we graduate. Crystallize. Incipience made perfect.
Doom-da-doom-da-doom. Doom. Duh-dup. Doom-da-doom-da-doom. Duh-Doom. Duh-Doom-doom-doom!
#30
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Call to Worship
I was glad when they said unto me "Let us go into the house of the Lord."
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, Oh Jerusalem.
For a day in thy court is better than a thousand. I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good.
They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.
Oh Lord I love thy habitation, the place where thy honor dwelleth.
For the Lord is in his holy temple let all the earth keep silence before him.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
O sing a new song unto the Lord for he has done marvelous things, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, and all the earth sing his praises.
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, Oh Jerusalem.
For a day in thy court is better than a thousand. I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good.
They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.
Oh Lord I love thy habitation, the place where thy honor dwelleth.
For the Lord is in his holy temple let all the earth keep silence before him.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
O sing a new song unto the Lord for he has done marvelous things, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, and all the earth sing his praises.
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