It's a brand new day!

I had to see it for myself. I taped both CNN and CNBC. I'm not sure why.

For some reason, the radio station we have at work in my little area acted like nothing was happening. And unfortunately I was so busy today that it wasn't until I went to go talk to one of the other nurses about something that I realized what was happening today. I heard Barack Obama's inauguration speech coming through on her radio, and I realized that "the moment", as CNN has been calling it, had come and gone. We had a new president. But I was so busy that it didn't really register.

Overjoyed as I have been all day that Bush is no longer president, it wasn't until just now, as I was watching President Obama take the oath of office on CNN, that it finally felt like we have a new president. That he is now President Obama, he is now the President of the United States.

The chorus "Oh, happy day!" keeps running through my head.

What a great new day it is today!

At last...

today is the last day of the worst presidency in American history. Tomorrow, the first day of hope in a long, long time.

My Con Law professor knows someone who took Con Law from Barack Obama when he was still teaching. One day, as an example of the greatness of this democracy, Obama said to his class "Hey, one day even I might be president!" The class' response? To laugh. Obama was probably feeling a little hurt when he asked why they were laughing. No one really had an answer.

Can you imagine tomorrow being one of those students who laughed at the idea of Barack Obama being President of the United States?

And how fitting that he would prove them all wrong the day after Martin Luther King Day.

Rev. Gene Robinson to deliver first invocation of Obama's inauguration!!!!

Although I grew up Catholic, I decided a long time ago that I no longer wanted to be Catholic anymore. Nothing against my particular Church or anything, but I was looking for a slightly more open-minded Church. The first time I went to an Episcopal service, it was for a U2charist. I knew there was something about the Episcopal Church I liked. :) Then I realized that the first gay priest, the one all the fuss was about, was a Bishop in the Episcopal Church here in NH. Between that and the experience of going to an Episcopal mass, I was completely and totally sold on the Episcopal Church. And now Rev. Robinson is going to give the first invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration!


January 12, 2009
Openly gay bishop to deliver first inauguration event invocation
Posted: 06:44 PM ET

From CNN Associate Political Editor Rebecca Sinderbrand
Robinson became the U.S. Episcopal church’s first openly gay bishop in 2003.

(CNN) — The first openly gay priest ordained by a major Christian denomination will deliver the invocation at the kickoff inauguration event Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial.

The Rev. Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire, has accepted an invitation issued by the Obama team prior to the announcement of the Rev. Rick Warren’s selection to deliver the invocation at the president-elect’s swearing-in, Politico reported Monday.

Robinson had been a critic of Warren’s role, calling his inclusion in the event “really, really unfortunate” because of the California minister's support for California's Prop. 8, which barred same-sex marriage.

“It's about this particular venue and the role that he has in praying for all of America, and I'm just not sure he'd pray to God the same way I would,” Robinson told Beliefnet last month.

“…This particular choice [of Warren] is not about having everyone at the table for a discussion or some sort of general forum. Every choice related to who does what at the inauguration is highly symbolic, and I think the transition team failed to ask the question of what, symbolically, this might say to some of our citizens.”

Robinson said at the time his disappointment would not affect his plans to attend President-elect Obama’s inauguration.